Saving Human Rights from the Human Racists

originally published June 10, 2003

We need a global campaign for the right of all people to control their own body and mind

During a recent debate between Greg Stock and George Annas at Yale University, Annas insisted that the human species needed protecting from human enhancement. This is why, he says, he is proposing an international treaty to make cloning and inheritable genetic modifications “crimes against humanity.” Stock, in turn, says he doesn’t care about the species, in the abstract; he cares about people.

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Complete entry

Posted by David Olivier  on  08/14  at  08:01 AM

What difference do you see between speciesism and what you call human-racism?

Posted by jhughes  on  08/14  at  09:38 AM

Calling the human-racists "human-racists" annoys them a lot more than calling them speciesist. It also underlines the continuity with racism. Other than that, no, not much difference. I suppose an alien or an uplifted chimp could also be speciesist, whereas "human-racist" is a more narrow term.

Posted by David Olivier  on  08/14  at  04:12 PM

Thanks for your answer. I see your point.

David

Posted by Mark McCoy  on  05/26  at  01:25 PM

I am an advocate of natural rights which begin with a Creator, or source, and end with an individual who is aware of, not only their rights, but likewise aware of the like-rights of others. Without digressing to semantics of what "rights" are, I believe that natural rights embrace the concept of modification and enhancement. Notwithstanding any real or perceived gains from such activity, whatever takes place is confined nevertheless within the rules under which all creation is bound to operate.

Any modification or enhancement must eventually succumb to the rules of nature and if self-sustaining, will flourish within such prescribed rules. Everything to the contrary will cease to be given time for nature to evaluate its worthiness in the natural world. The ability to reason and conceive of such enhancements are themselves gleaned from man's observation of the workings of the natural world; and the effects of his manipulating such are but an expression of the very functions of nature from man's perspective.

I believe that man too must re-evaluate his place in the world and amongst its other inhabitants. Not that man must necessarily ascribe an enumerated list of rights to all species, but whether it is permissible that man's exercise of his rights is justified by the ensuing harm caused to other life forms. The symbiotic ties which conduce all life to prosper on this planet is extensively mapped, hopefully not too late, and the physical and metaphysical ties which bind us all to a greater kinship has yet to be fully understood.

I believe there is room for natural rights and transhuman thought to coexist since it is nature which ultimately adjudicates the efficacy of all which comes before it.

Posted by hector  on  05/26  at  11:26 PM

"The Great Ape Project's campaign to extend human rights protections to chimps and other apes is an important ally in breaking through human-racism."
No offense to anyone, but I think the Great Ape project is an exercise in futility. Once they start getting noticed, a new organization called, say, The Great Sloth Project will get created by some cynical folks accusing the "equal rights for apes" crowd of being racists against sloths, ultimately revealing the fact that the Apes crowd are actually not just about apes, but about all animals.

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