Replacement Parts for People

It's been an odd day in Streeterville. At one point there was fog so dense that I couldn't see the lake from the 14th floor perch on the other side of the street. Then there were thunderstorms with lightning. Then it rained really, really hard, the kind of hard rain my father would have called "a real gully washer." It's currently 50 degrees under cloudy skies at the Mini.

I've been looking at the state of the lake, now that I can see it and the water movement seems to have herded all of the loose chunks of ice floating around to a place in the little artificial bay formed by the shore, concrete barriers on two sides and the little jut of land that holds the water treatment plant and Navy Pier. There is a restless herd of iceberglets bumping one another and floating around across the street, and not so much ice out in the open water. "Yippy Yi Yo Ki Yay. Git along little berglets. Git over yonder and melt."

It is the first full day of Daylight Savings Time today, and lo and behold Happy Hour arrived while there was still full light outside. Can shorts and t-shirts be far away? Of course not. They're packed away in that cedar chest where they were exchanged with sweaters and scarves last fall. Put away the sweaters and scarves? Oh I think not. That would indeed be Pollyannaish folly. It's not that time just yet, but not long, not long.

I've been reading in the news, and seeing the news on television, recently and it seems that President Obama is reversing the Bush administration bans on stem cell research. I say "Bravo." It's amazing that they have found a way to grow stem cells and with scientific manipulations they can make those stem cells grow into anything they need for scientific research purposes.

I once worked as a shipping/receiving clerk in the warehouse at a hospital. In the process of checking in all of the items that came through the receiving dock at a hospital, it is amazing what you see. There were various knee parts, hip joints, and assorted replacement pieces for orthopedic surgeons. There were valves for hearts, lenses for eyes, and replacement fluids galore. At the time I was simply amazed by all of the replacement parts for people that are available, as though we are like a Ford automobile and all we need do is go to the parts store to pick up a replacement for old and worn out parts. That was almost 30 years ago now.

With stem cells, the possibility actually exists to grow new parts for people. Medical science is making it possible to replace defective parts and worn out parts. People in the more advanced, industrial, technological societies routinely live to be 80-100 years old now. I can honestly see a day in the not so distant future where people will accept and plan for living to be at least 100 years old. Can it be so far away that scientists will find the switches in our DNA that cause aging and learn how to flip the switch, so that our bodies continue to rebuild new tissue and Dorian Gray won't need that picture any more?

Isaac Asimov wrote a whole series of books that started with a novella called Methuselah's Children. The premise was that medical science had advanced to the point that they had extended people's lives to over 200 years. Then they learned how to grow entirely new bodies for transplanting one's mind into. You could live an entirely new lifetime in another body. You had been short. Now you could be tall. You had been born a woman. Now you could see what it was like to be a man. You were born with a body with imperfections. You could have a scientifically engineered body with all of those imperfections neatly removed. In light of current developments, is this really so far-fetched?

Medical science is in the process of making amazing strides, in growing new tissue, in DNA analysis and manipulation, to defeat disease and body failures. We are currently struggling with the ethics of a lot of this. Should you be checking the DNA of unborn fetuses and correcting conditions before birth by DNA manipulation? Should we be creating designer children who are all beautiful, intelligent, and highly gifted intellectually and physically? If so, who decides who gets this kind of treatment. Will the poor be left behind while the rich continue to assure their dominance in their designer world?

These are legitimate issues, but they are issues that need to be discussed rationally. Religion has no place in this discussion. Science is that which is observable and can be proven. Religion is something that is based on faith and is not observable, nor can it be proven by observation and documentation. It is science that has gotten us to the place we are in now. It is religion and its faith that placed Galileo under house arrest for insisting that the Sun, not the Earth is at the center of our solar system.

As for designer children, replacement parts, or even replacement bodies, and lifetimes far beyond our current expectations, and as for the rich vs. poor conundrum, we need to take this all one step at a time. Let us come up with reasonable, equitable solutions. Let us not hold ourselves back by the politicking of those who have removed their brains and inserted their Bibles. Let us allow scientists to do that which they are trained and anxious to do. Let them make our lives better. Let our government do that which it can do for us if we allow it, provide solutions. I believe one positive step we can take is for our government to help us all to have access to health care. Then maybe we can also take on that problem of melting polar ice caps. Of course, our government also needs to make it possible for those scientists to do their jobs, not interfere with legitimate research because someone thinks we are attempting to usurp God's power and go against his laws.