POSTING LATE TODAY
DUE TO THE MARRIAGE OF MY LOVELY NIECE! Congratulations Jessica and Jorge!!!!
Using the panel discussions of the most
recent World Science Fiction Convention in Kansas City in August 2016 (to which
I was invited and had a friend pay my membership! [Thanks, Paul!] but was
unable to go (until I retire from education)), I will jump off, jump on, rail
against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy
of the Program Guide. This is event #2270. The link is provided below…
Whose DNA is It? Panelists
discuss DNA, privacy and the law. What can be done with your DNA without your
permission, and what is your recourse if you discover yours has been used?
Marguerite Kenner:
Story teller from CAST OF WONDERS (who read one of my stories, long ago!) also
British lawyer
Mr. Howard
Rosenblatt: Lawyer from Gainesville, FL
Kenneth Schneyer: prolific
short story writer
Dr. Helen
Pennington: “Helen
Pennington, a doctoral training student at Imperial College London”
(July 2015, Royal Society for Biology Blog, https://blog.rsb.org.uk/science-fact-for-fiction/
The obvious
“textbook” for this discussion is THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS (Rebecca
Skloot) and the answer is, “nothing”. Not really. Not yet.
Even so, I’ve been
doing a lot of thinking about this and in my RIVER Universe books, the
Confluence of Humanity has no trouble genetically re-engineering Humanity to
fit whatever purpose is needed. In the short story I’m working on now, the main
character will soon find out he has a clone brother – one who has been
engineered into a kilometer wide manta ray creature with a bladder in the
center that contains an nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere – and can be used as an
ambulance in the atmosphere of the gas giant, River.
Are they still
related? Genetically, yes. Was he informed about the use of his DNA to create
another, alien-like Human? Absolutely not. But he was soldier and was ordered
to sign away his rights to his DNA. He didn’t care, so he did. The military had
a clear purpose though. Did I mention he was a direct-line descendant of
Henrietta Lacks? No? Oops. Turns out the HeLa cells are also perfectly
cloneable.
Anyway, this is a
discussion I probably would have skipped initially, but now that I’ve had time
to ponder the PERSONAL implications of genetic engineering, I’d have taken it
up in a heartbeat.
Another reason
would also be that the conflict in my stories will arise primarily from the
fact that the opposition to the Confluence is the Empire of Man. Imperials have
set a clear divider between those who are Human and those who are not. If your
DNA is less than 65% original Human, you are not Human – and subsequently either
a slave or “livestock”.
In a completely different
direction, I’ll also add that during the Civil War, children were not regarded
as Human, either. It wasn’t until 1874 that the US was able to prosecute a case
of child abuse…under the auspices of the American Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals. Children weren’t granted legal rights in England in the
late 1760s.
So, I often
explore what it means to BE Human. In fact, I’ve discovered that as a theme, it
rises up in several pieces of my published writing. Looking at the stories I’ve
done in the “What Went Right” series – even when I look at the “Can This Story
Be Saved?” – I see that I’m trying to do the same thing. Just not as
effectively.
Take-away? I guess
to take advantage of opportunities to learn, even if you’re not certain that you
can use the ideas in your writing. You never know!
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