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Budapest W8: Emerging Technology - Class Notes

How can we imagine life at a cellular level? How does human genetics transform new technology and politics of life?

What changes if we look at life at the molecular level

Life narrative of me: birth, growth, reproduction, illness, health and death
Life narrative of cells: fertilisation, formulation, regeneration and death

Once a person is studied at the molecular level, there is predisposition for commodification - cryo, biobanks, blood donation, research, organ donation

Do we have to change the law to accommodate new entities, such as embryos, human tissues, human cells, DNA etc?

What are the similarities and differences?

Does the molecular level raise entirely new questions?

Ethical responsibility of genetic information - who holds the responsibility to pass on genetic diseases? The patient or the doctor?
And where does the patient end? At the individual, or everyone who is effected by those genes?
https://www.cascaidr.org.uk/2018/10/16/abc-v-st-georges-healthcare-nhs-trust-south-west-london-st-georges-mental-health-nhs-trust-sussex-partnership-nhs-foundation-trust-2017/
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/25/woman-inherited-fatal-illness-sue-doctors-groundbreaking-case-huntingtons

Intervention at the molecular level (test, screening, research)
- Patient/consumer - no direct contact, no pain, no suffering. Intervention results are less accessible and comprehensible. The longer term consequences to the patient are not clear.
- Doctor/researcher - patient is invisible. Molecular level research may desensitise the researcher. More opportunity for research. Context is missing.

Differences in ethical challenges:
Body - Aiming to avoid inhuman, degrading, unnecessarily painful treatment/research. Not to be discriminated. Avoid eugenic practices such as non-voluntary sterilisation.
Cell - Aiming to avoid the misuse of information or obtaining information covertly. Avoid commodification. Avoid use for discriminatory purposes (sex selection, health insurance)

Human rights - human dignity, non-discrimination, self-determination, human body

The biological being is effected by technological interventions

Eugenics is always referenced - prohibition of discrimination - Nazi's

Rose: Molecularisation, Enhancement, Subjectification, Somatic expertise. 

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