Do men have the right to control lives?
One of the most controversial issues today is that whether men have the right or not to control lives. Control here includes creating, changing or wiping out lives unnaturally. Like the most famous example of Dolly the Sheep, is it agreeable for men to create, give or even change lives which is not nature? Being a donator of the sperm bank, is that ethical for a man to have 250 children with an unnatural way which we call “technology”? Or is it moral for men to create genetically modified organism (GMO) or genetically-modified foods? Do they harm men’s bodies or the whole ecological system? Even with the proper reasons or with suitable plans, will it be dangerous or harmful to create lives by the so-called technology?
The issue of “lives” is being argued endlessly. Technology today can provide men a chance to challenge nature. Creating lives through the natural way is the most simple and necessary behavior in the ecosystem, but how about cloning, changing or even creating lives through an unnatural way? From excitement to fearfulness, men start to think about the dilemma and try to find the balance of lives. Can Men replace God? Or is it actually a self-destructive course of action?
The following parts are the inquiries from different texts like movies and novels. There are four subject matters included in this issue: Jurassic Park, My Sister’s keeper, Frankenstein and sperm bank. From the previous three source materials, we can hear different voices from different kinds of creatures who convey the similar ideas and take violent actions which they try to express their own will -how do they protest and fight back to their own creators for their own lives. In Jurassic Park, the dinosaurs alter their DNA automatically and break the limitation that human set to control the situation. In My Sister’s Keeper, we see the contradiction between live and death. In Frankenstein, we hear a monster’s pain and anger from his heart. From its accusation we start to think over is it fair or not to create lives in a non-natural way. Through the three levels of creatures: animal, monster and human being, we see the unpredictable characteristic of lives. No matter whether with emotion and wisdom or not, lives cannot be controlled.
Jurassic Park” was a science fiction adventure film which filmed in 1993. The main issue of Jurassic Park is about whether men have the right or not to play the role of God. In this movie, scientists try hard to recreate dinosaurs. With high technology and biotechnology, scientists take bloods from mosquitoes inside the ambers which become fossils. Men successfully create extinctive dinosaurs 65 million years ago. It seems that human does control the power and secret of gene to overtop the whole ecosystem. Ecology is no more mysterious and delicate at all because men successfully break the code of eco-system. But is that true? Do men really control the power and rank above nature?
In the forepart of the movie, the birth of dinosaur is just like a miracle that enchanted all the characters except the mathematician Dr. Malcolm. Without other characters’ passion, Dr. Ian Malcolm shows distrustful attitude to the whole action and idea in the very beginning. “If there's one thing the history of evolution has taught us, it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, expands to new places, and it crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously…but there it is.”(Jurassic Park,1993). Here Dr. Malcolm plays a role for audience to see things beyond scientists’ superficial and short victory from a detached way. The rational distrust challenges modern technology and reminds audience that life is unique. It has no limitation that men cannot even try to change it in any unnatural way.
It is not the main problem to discuss whether men have the right or not to control the power of natural in this issue, instead, the most important question is, do men have the ability to control this kind of power and well-arrange it? From the example of the film Jurassic Park, scientists can recreate dinosaurs with high tech, but it doesn’t mean that men can arrange this power in a proper way. The billionaire investor, John Hammond tries to fight for his behavior and idea, “Our scientists have done things which nobody has ever done before.”(Jurassic Park,1993). But as Dr. Malcolm responses, it is “wield it like a kid that's found his dad's gun.” (Jurassic Park,1993). No men can promise there won’t be any dangers after playing these dangerous games. Most of the time human do the so-called invention is not for the real benefits of the environment but actually hurt it through the improper way. In Jurassic Park, people cannot even image how catastrophic these creations cause that make their lives all in danger. If there is no absolute safe presupposition, and there won’t be any real absolute safe presupposition exists, then men have no right to play the role of God. Dr. Malcolm: “What you call discovery…I call the rape of the natural world.” (Jurassic Park,1993). His words perfectly define men's behaviors which originate from ambition and desire to conquer the natural.
The dilemma between innovation of bio-technology and the danger of no ability to control the power is the most radical and urgently problem men have to face. There are advantages that benefit people’s lives from these innovations that we can’t deny, but still more unknown and uncontrollable dangers are hidden in the unexplored field. Should we ignore the potential problems just for the present benefits? Conservative attitude is safer than beneficial riskiness.
“My Sister’s Keeper” is a novel written by Judy Picoult in 2004. The subject in this novel is so controversial that more and more people put emphasis on it. We start to think over that whether it is legal or not for men to save one life by creating and using the other life with specific purposes. The main character in this novel, Anna, is one donator, who donates part of her body to save her older sister, Kate, since the moment she was being born. Anna’s birth was not a gift from God. Actually, her birth was elaborately planned by her parents and doctors after Kate was being diagnosed of APL (acute promyelocytic leukemia). When she is 13-year-old, Anna decides to protest for herself, and the only forceful way is to sue her parents, Sara and Brian. Anna’s ultimate demand is to gets to make all future medical decisions. This is the only method for Anna to protect her kidney and her own body.
It seems both natural and right for Anna to provide part of her body or even organ to cure Kate since she is planned to birth. But is that legal? Or we should say, is that reasonable for creators to use the creation in any kinds of use, no matter this creature has emotion or not, since he/she has the power to control this creation’s life? After reading “My Sister’s Keeper”, readers are compelled to face this question. It becomes far more complex and dilemmatic because the creature here is not an inanimate object but one human being with her own will, intelligence and sensibility. Indeed, Anna is born to save Kate that makes her shoulder the stress of donation no matter she is willing or not. But here we should focus on Anna’s humanity. As Anna’s counselor says, “Anna Fitzgerald’s life she has been medically treated for her sister’s good, not her own.“(Picoult, 2009, p.285) The operations of donation are actually gone against of Anna’s will. Sara’s demands for Anna to donate cord blood, lymphocytes or even one of her kidney are violate the morals and the basic demands of humanity. Since Kate has the right to struggle for her life, and equally Anna has the right to protect her freedom of person.
“The fact that the only reason I was born was as a harvest crop for Kate.” (Picoult, 2009, p.18) It is Anna’s shout and anger from her deep heart because of the unfair treatment. There should be no reasons or excuses for any people to deprive the other man’s right of protecting himself. The unfair and barbaric deeds should not appear in the high civilization modern world today.
Take some examples from the reality to see the problems, the two articles from “Discovery” and “The International Business Times” both focus on the problems of sperm banks. Some couples might face have the difficulties of getting pregnant, but they don’t want to adopt a child to solve this problem. Under this circumstance, the emergence of the sperm banks seems to be the lighthouse for these worried couples. There are successful cases that the wives finally pregnant and have their own child. But is the existence of sperm bank safe enough? Are there any serious defects hiding in the shadows that people haven’t discovered?
Actually there are indeed some terrible and even dangerous flaws of sperm banks. “The New York Times ran a story this week about a 48-year old woman who discovered that her son - conceived through artificial insemination - had 149 siblings, with more on the way.”(Sperm Donors May Father 'Dozens' of Children, 2011). This is only one of the related cases which are revealed to the society to make the audience know this “truth”. With 149 siblings exist in the world (or possibly even more), it becomes dangerous for these children to fall in love with their siblings and have children together after they grow up. “People who seek sperm donation are from the same socio-economical status. They know each other, they are advised to see the same doctor, and they live in the same neighborhood. It's not randomly distributed.” It is possible for the siblings to meet or even get married in the future. Worst of all, the sperm donor might has a high possibility of having sex with his daughter.
The “dangerous meetings” might cause one most serious problem: incest. The inbreeding might spread the genetic diseases, including rare diseases. “Specialists warn over-reliance of one donor increases the risk of the transmission of genetic diseases and malformations, and some say there are dangers of inadvertent incest between half-siblings.”(Sperm Bank Baby Booms May Be Putting Children At Risk For Incest and Genetic Disorders,2011). It seems that men always ignore the potential and possible dangers while challenging nature. Men might have the ability to change lives, but it still doesn’t mean that it is right for men to do so.
“Frankenstein” was written by Mary Shelley (1797-1851). Frankenstein is a young man indulges in science. Devoting every effect to the scientific experiment, Frankenstein finds that he successfully discovers the secret of life: the power of bestowing lives to lifeless matters. It makes him go wild with joy and forgets that with this discovery come serious consequences. It is when the giant, ugly Monster he creates awakes and shocks him that he comes to realize his error. The Monster kills its creator’s most beloved people just because it hates desolate state. Frankenstein tries to do everything with utmost effort to destroy the Monster’s life but all in vain. The Monster keeps killing and Frankenstein continually fails to catch the Monster. At the end of the story, Frankenstein dies before finishing his task, and the Monster decides to go to the northern extreme of the globe and to embraces death.
Frankenstein symbolizes human being’s ambitions of experimenting, discovering and creating. “But this discovery was so great and overwhelming that all the steps by which I had been progressively led to it were obliterated, and I beheld only the result, what had been the study and desire of the wisest men since the creation of the world was now within my grasp.” (Shelley, 2009, p.47)As a scientist, it is undoubtedly that he is excited to see his experiments finally yield positive results. The secret of life motivates him to bestow life to lifeless creature, and it is so fascinating to him that he can’t pay any attention to the potential dangers. “I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead and found a passage to life, aided only by one glimmering and seemingly ineffectual light.” (Shelley, 2009, p.48)That’s the mistake Frankenstein makes which leads to the miserable tragedy. He doesn’t take into account the possibility of danger his actions may lead to.
The other character, the Monster, actually symbolizes the ill effects produced by human being’s ambition, impulse and arrogance. The Monster once said to his creator: “Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.” (Shelley, 2009, p.107)Men try hard to challenge nature and control the power and secret of life, but have no ability to deal with the unexpected situations. We can see numerous of creations (even including babies) are born with deformity from men’s experiments. It is unfair for them to live with abnormal shapes or functionless organs. The Monster says to Frankenstein, “How dare you sport thus with life?” (Shelley, 2009, p.106)Indeed. How dare men treat life and nature in this way? What human being should learn is to respect lives and nature more.
Once human beings respect the mysterious of life, but now most of us don’t conscious that we are now exceeding the limitation. Men are just like the kids building sandy castles on the beach, the achievements are so fragile that almost cannot withstand a single blow. It is time for us to think that do we really yield the positive results? Or we just explore a source of endless troubles? The deadly shortcoming of human being is that once the more we get, the more we want to have. Not long after men become powerful enough and even dares to challenge and try to take place of the Creator. But suddenly we find that it is as if walking on the ice. All the examples show us the truth that it is time for us to stop this dangerous game. Remember, whoever plays with fire gets burn.
(Venice, 27)