In Their Own Words
- "Chimeras [human-animal crossbreads] or parahumans
might legitimately be fashioned to do dangerous or demeaning
jobs. As it is now, low-grade work is shoved off on
moronic and retarded individuals, the victims of uncontrolled
reproduction. Should we not program such workers 'thoughtfully'
instead of accidentally, by means of hybridization?"
— Dr. Joseph Fletcher,
Harvard University professor
widely recognized as the "patriarch of bioethics"
- "The horizons of the new eugenics are, in principle, boundless. For the first time in all time, a living creature understands its origin and can undertake to design its future..." — Dr. Robert Sinsheimer, molecular biologist, Chancellor of the University of California at Santa Cruz, initiator of the Human Genome Project.
- "No newborn infant should be declared human until
it has passed certain tests regarding its genetic endowment,
and that if it fails these tests it forfeits the right
to live.” — Dr. Francis Crick,
Nobel Prize Laureate 1962, co-discovery of
DNA. Crick also favored a scheme for licensing
parenthood or a tax on children to encourage "those
people who are more socially desirable to have more
children.”
- "If you are really stupid, I would call that a disease...so
I'd like to get rid of that....People say it would be
terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would
be great." — Dr. James Watson, president of
the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory, New York, Nobel
Prize Laureate, co-discovery of DNA, advocating for
manipulation of the human genome.
- "Science is moving at such a fast pace that scientists
have proven that they can create headless mice through
removal of genes in the embryo that control development
of the head. But the body would have the capacity to
keep the organs functional for use as transplants....
Embryonic stem cells, which holds promise of cure of
any organ, is but a slow move towards immortality."
— Dr. P.B. Desai,
world
renowned oncologist in India
- "If biological manipulation is indeed a slippery
slope, then we are already sliding down that slope now
and may as well enjoy the ride.'' — Gregory
Stock, Director of the Program on Medicine,
Technology, and Society at UCLA’s School of Public Health
and author of
Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future
- "There is a close analogy between a human body invaded
by a cancer and a nation afflicted with subpopulations
whose inborn defects cause them to become social liabilities.
Just as in cancer the best treatment is to eradicate
the parasitic growth as quickly as possible, the eugenic
defense against the dysgenic social effects of afflicted
subpopulations is of necessity limited to equally drastic
measures . . . . When these inferior elements are not
effectively eliminated from a population, then—just
as when the cells of a malignant tumor are allowed to
proliferate throughout a human body—they destroy the
host body as well as themselves." — Dr. Konrad
Lorenz, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine,
1973. (Taking Eugenics Seriously)
Critics of Transhumanism
