THE TRANSHUMANIST SCRAPBOOK: THE COMING DEBATE ON GMO BABIES: HERE COME THE PATENTS…
September 23, 2013 By
There’s a move afoot, folks, to open a debate on the acceptability of genetically modified human babies… yes, you read that correctly. But before we get to that, a little refresher. When Dr. de Hart and I were researching and writing Transhumanism: A Grimoire of Alchemical Agendas, one of the things we discovered were technologies whereby the mitochondrial DNA of one parent could be removed and replaced with that of another, in the genetic modification of mice, which is effectively saying that mice could be born that had two mothers and one father, or, three parents.
Now the technology has been applied to humans, and the FDA is sponsoring a two day debate:
Genetically Modified Babies
Two days to settle an issue that, as the article points out, has already led to humans being born with (unspecified) defects, which in turn could be passed down generationally?
But wait…there’s another implication here, a very dark and sinister one, lurking in the shadows.
When we wrote Transhumanism, we pointed out that the whole field of genetically modified raised the specter of the application of patent law to human beings. The reasoning was simply that, in the legal standards that apply in US patent law, standards similar to patent law in the UK, France or other western countries, that something was patentable if it could only arise with the intervention of the “hand of man” and via a recipe or normalized procedure and technology that would allow a process to be replicated by anyone following the recipe. We suggested that modifications like mice with three parents was such a procedure, and hence that such life forms could be patentable… they could literally be some corporation’s property.
With this article, we are a step closer to that gruesome reality. And let’s take a page from the Mon(ster)santo – US Supremes playbook (that’s the Supreme Court with its Injustices, for those of you unaccustomed to my nicknames). Suppose such a corporation were successful in applying patent law to humans, and suppose that it then took the offspring of such a GMO baby to court for “non-payment of royalties and license fees on the replication of a gene (one with two mothers, one mother for the Mitochondrial DNA, and another for the other DNA itself), which could only be produced using ‘the process’…” Well, you get the picture. “We’re sorry, your baby is an unauthorized reproduction of a corporate gene, and must be turned over to the corporation for appropriate processing.”
The trouble is, folks, that the precedents have already been read into law by egregiously bad decisions by the Injustices of the Supremes and other bought and paid for “courts”. And if you don’t think corporations would have no scruples about getting their greedy mitts into human nature itself, think again, because they also want to tax sunlight, forbid you to collect rainwater, and a host of other hypocrisies that would make even a liberal hypocrite like Al Gore blush.
There’s a move afoot, folks, to open a debate on the acceptability of genetically modified human babies… yes, you read that correctly. But before we get to that, a little refresher. When Dr. de Hart and I were researching and writing Transhumanism: A Grimoire of Alchemical Agendas, one of the things we discovered were technologies whereby the mitochondrial DNA of one parent could be removed and replaced with that of another, in the genetic modification of mice, which is effectively saying that mice could be born that had two mothers and one father, or, three parents.
Now the technology has been applied to humans, and the FDA is sponsoring a two day debate:
Genetically Modified Babies
Two days to settle an issue that, as the article points out, has already led to humans being born with (unspecified) defects, which in turn could be passed down generationally?
But wait…there’s another implication here, a very dark and sinister one, lurking in the shadows.
When we wrote Transhumanism, we pointed out that the whole field of genetically modified raised the specter of the application of patent law to human beings. The reasoning was simply that, in the legal standards that apply in US patent law, standards similar to patent law in the UK, France or other western countries, that something was patentable if it could only arise with the intervention of the “hand of man” and via a recipe or normalized procedure and technology that would allow a process to be replicated by anyone following the recipe. We suggested that modifications like mice with three parents was such a procedure, and hence that such life forms could be patentable… they could literally be some corporation’s property.
With this article, we are a step closer to that gruesome reality. And let’s take a page from the Mon(ster)santo – US Supremes playbook (that’s the Supreme Court with its Injustices, for those of you unaccustomed to my nicknames). Suppose such a corporation were successful in applying patent law to humans, and suppose that it then took the offspring of such a GMO baby to court for “non-payment of royalties and license fees on the replication of a gene (one with two mothers, one mother for the Mitochondrial DNA, and another for the other DNA itself), which could only be produced using ‘the process’…” Well, you get the picture. “We’re sorry, your baby is an unauthorized reproduction of a corporate gene, and must be turned over to the corporation for appropriate processing.”
The trouble is, folks, that the precedents have already been read into law by egregiously bad decisions by the Injustices of the Supremes and other bought and paid for “courts”. And if you don’t think corporations would have no scruples about getting their greedy mitts into human nature itself, think again, because they also want to tax sunlight, forbid you to collect rainwater, and a host of other hypocrisies that would make even a liberal hypocrite like Al Gore blush.
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