[extropy-chat] the (scary) future of pro-death bioethics and legislation

[Reason]

For discussion, quoting below from myself and George Dvorsky. Read the
articles.

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/000143.php
http://www.betterhumans.com/Features/Columns/Transitory_Human/column.aspx?ar
ticleID=2004-06-10-1
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/000092.php

Government mandated limits to life span: it's an ugly idea, frequently
explored in Science Fiction. Is it likely to happen in the real world,
however? Worse things have been done to people in the name of law and
government in the past, even in the recent past. If you live in a developed
country, the chances are that government employees already have a great deal
of control over your life span: your opinions on the matter are usually
irrelevant.

...

Of late, I have started to explore the idea that present day opposition to
serious anti-aging research (as led by Leon Kass, Francis Fukuyama and
others) will lead to legislation blocking or limiting our access to healthy
life extension technologies.

Politicians - even in comparatively free countries like the US - already
exert a great deal of control over access to medicine, what you can and
can't do with your body, and what medical research is permitted.
Unfortunately, this power is already being abused - as power always is - in
many areas, including stem cell research and therapeutic cloning. It is a
small leap from the present day functions of the FDA to a body that sets
maximum life spans by enforcing restrictions on new anti-aging medical
technologies.

George Dvorsky has written an excellent article on this topic that is
currently posted at Betterhumans. I quote a fair amount in this post, but
there is a good deal more where that came from - so read the whole thing.

...

I consider myself open to ideas and alternative perspectives, but as I
consider the arguments of the bio-Luddites and look deeper into their
meaning, I have come to realize that the death-promoting propaganda campaign
is more than just a battle for hearts and minds. I get the impression
that—should radical life extension technologies become readily
available—these detractors, some of whom have the ear of the President,
would go much further than fighting a war of words in their attempt to
ensure that we never gain mastery over our mortality.

...

At times the bio-Luddites sound parochial and authoritarian, and at their
worst they sound downright ideological and even totalitarian.

Indeed, as Kass has repeatedly stated, "the finitude of human life is a
blessing for every individual, whether he knows it or not." And
frighteningly, when asked by Brian Alexander, the author of Rapture: How
Biotechnology Became the New Religion, if the government has a right to tell
its citizens that they have to die, Fukuyama answered, "Yes, absolutely."

...

And as for the bio-Luddite deathists, they're offering Americans the worst
and most useless kind of ethics. It is an ethics without foundation in
reality and devoid of pragmatic guidance and practical solutions. It simply
doesn't do for the coming realities of 21st century life.

...

I couldn't agree more, and it's a great shame that the field once known as
medical ethics has degenerated into a coven of high profile bioethicists set
on finding the best way to prevent new medicines from saving lives.

Squashing the opposition to serious anti-aging medical research will require
supporters of healthy life extension to start our side of the coming battle
early. We can't afford to wait for entrenched pro-death bioethicists to gain
even greater influence over our overbearing, winner-takes-all governments.

Reason
Founder, Longevity Meme