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Who is Human?
The question of who is human is easy to answer now, but technology is about to make that question a complex one. Mutant X’s ferals are pure fiction and will always be, but the possibility of introducing non-human DNA into humans is not. There are already transgenic plants in commercial use. Someone, somewhere, sometime will create a transgenic human being.
Why would anyone want to create a transgenic human?
The technology could be developed benignly enough, to replace DNA coding for a deleterious trait such as sickle cell anemia. Beginning with the replacement of troublesome human DNA with healthy human DNA, it is a short leap to adding non-human DNA. Such work could also begin with a reasonable, positive purpose.
Humans are nearly unique among mammals in being unable to synthesize vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Introducing the genetics required for ascorbic acid would be a highly useful trait among a group of Mars colonists, for example. Such an individual remains obviously human.
What if people could whimsically select certain traits for their progeny at the single-cell stage, such a hair with a striped pattern or lavender-colored eyes? Such children would only have superficial differences, and would likely be accepted without difficulty as human.
What if a parent wanted a child who was a superior athlete, and introduced the genetics to create an individual with proportionally far more fast twitch muscle cells than any human could naturally be born with? This child would be a literally unbeatable sprinter with the same level of training as competitors, but should they be allowed to compete against other people with no alterations—can they still be considered strictly human?
Much of our behavior and personality is not learned but inherited. Left to their own choices, an overwhelming proportion of people sleep at night and are awake during the day. Night shift workers suffer considerable health problems when this natural inclination is reversed. What if people were created who were naturally nocturnal?
Compared to other primates, adjusting for size, humans are comparatively weak. What if the strength of a human could be adjusted to be proportional to size?
And what would you call an individual who combined all of these qualities?
What about people who have no non-human DNA, but are the result of fusions of the DNA of dozens or even hundreds of people? Who are their parents?
What would such individuals think of the people who created them—will they thank them or curse them?
What about individuals who are chimeras, not the results of DNA tampering, but fusions of animal cells to a human base, individuals clearly displaying their unique genetics? Are they human? What if they cannot be housebroken?
More vaguely, what about chimeras who are primarily animals, with some admixture of human cells? Are they human? What if they have long, striped tails, but can speak, reason, write, even though their preferred walk is on all fours?
What are the rights and responsibilities of such individuals?
There is another possibility that will be possible and practical someday: ectogenesis, the development of an embryo in an artificial womb. The classic novel dealing with this theme is Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, but reality is closing in: animal embryos have already been developed partially by ectogenesis.
All of these questions, and possibly many more will arise sooner than you might believe.
Dark Mirage
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The Sun Never Sets on PureMX.net
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