Man put to the test By the
biological revolution
-Emmanuel Thevenon, Journalist, France
Gene therapy, cellular
regeneration…Behind the hopes aroused by biotechnology loom the temptation of
eugenics, the commercialization of living things, the use of man as a tool…With one
recurring fundamental question: where should the real boundary of what is human be placed?
In a survey published in the weekly
L’Express, on October 3rd, 2002, on "The French and Biotechnology", 74% of
people questioned thought that inserting genes into a living creature or cell, in order to
produce drugs or vaccines, is dangerous. 44% of them added that such techniques are
morally and ethically reprehensible. What a contrast with the euphoria that, a few weeks
earlier, surrounded the announcement of the completion of sequencing of almost the whole
human genome"! Surely this Herculean enterprise, in which the French National
Sequencing Center took part, opens the way to substantial medical advances?
The localization of one gene already makes it
possible to identify some genetic illness. In the future, pre-implementation diagnoses
will reject embroys obtained in vitro and carrying pathologies before they are implanted
in the mother’s uterus. How many unwanted genes will then be taken into
consideration: 10, 20, 100, 1000? Who knows where the impossible quest for the
"perfect" child will stop?
Indeed, sorting embryos awakens the specter
of eugenics. People thought that this doctrine, which aimed to improve the human species
by eliminating the weakest, had been definitely discredited by the Hitler regime. However,
in his book Le Principe d’humanite, the principle of humanity-, published in 2001,
the French journalist and essayist, Jean Claude Guillebaud, cites amongst many other
researchers, these terrifying words of the American Nobel Prize Winner, Francis Crick:
"No newborn child should be recognized as human before passing a number of tests
relating to his or her genetic endowment. If he does not pass these tests, he loses his
right to life."
Yet a defect--or more precisely a variation
from the norm—remains, in the matter of genetics, the best guarantee of a
species’ survival. In the eugenic society , "healthy" carriers of the Aids
virus, infected but not ill, would be eliminated, although their difference (their"
deviance") could perhaps lead to a cure for this ailment.
To prevent this kind of drift, in 1994 France
became the first country in the world to have provided a framework for scientific advance
by passing a law on "bioethics". Currently being revised, it stresses the
balance between the right of patients to better care, the freedom of researchers to do
their work and absolute respect for human dignity. Two years before the birth of Dolly the
sheep, in Great Britain, in 1996, the best cloned mammal in history, it prohibited human
cloning and banned the trading of any human organ or tissue.
Hopes for cure
Despite still very sparse results, gene
therapies are arousing just as many hopes. Two years ago, Professor Alain Fischer and his
team, at the Necker Hospital in Paris, were the first- and currently the
only—researchers to successfully use gene therapy on a human being: they have cured
several "bubble babies" by replacing a defective gene by a healthy gene. Until
then these children, suffering from a serious hereditary immune deficiency, had to live in
a sterile bubble protected from all infection. Nonetheless, at the beginning of October
2002, one of the children treated developed leukemia, provoking the suspension of this
clinical trial of gene therapy in order to analyze the mechanisms that had led to this
serious complication.
For reasons of financial profitability, most
biotechnology groups, such as France Biotech, which brings together eighty-two firms, are
working above all on perfecting tailor-made medicines for some of the commonest conditions
(schizophrenia, asthma, cancer etc.). Responding to the genetic sensitivity of the
individual patient, these remedies will be more effective and have many fewer side
effects.
These discoveries will be protected by
patents, for the financial stakes are enormous. But the financial hold of men over living
beings raises innumerable questions: does the discovery of a gene bear any relation to an
invention? What about the creation of a new species by genetic engineering? All are
questions that politicians and citizens have had hardly time to ask themselves because
science and market forces are running so much faster than thinking about these matters and
the democratic process…
The clone and its double
Another Eldorado: "stem" cells
which could enable the regeneration of any organ and diseased tissue in the human body,
including the brain; thus opening the way to a cure for neurodegenerative conditions, such
as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. New prospects are also taking shape in
the fight against sterility, aging and cancer.
However, research into cell therapy is as yet
only taking its first unsteady steps. "Studies on animals are very inadequate,"
says the French biologist Jacques Testart, who deplores the new draft of the law on
bioethics which would permit research on human embryos before such research has been
successfully concluded in animals. Certainly, French parliamentarians refused to open the
door to research into "therapeutic" cloning which is said to have already been
done by the American company. The technique is to create embryos from the skin cells of an
adult patient, in order to prevent risk of rejection and then to use the stem cells from
them.
Here, it is all a matter of terminology: in
its first two weeks of existence is the embryo a "potential human individual" as
the sages of French National Ethics Committee define it, or a simple cell cultivated in a
suitable environment that can therefore be used for research without any moral hesitation?
The only certainty is that research into therapeutic cloning, if it were permitted, would
inevitably lead to an explosion in the trade in ova across the world.
The legislators also fear a drift towards
"reproductive" cloning: the cloned embryo is then implanted in the womb of a
surrogate mother until it reaches term. Despite virtually unanimous condemnation
worldwide, several private research laboratories, one run by a religious sect, are set on
pursuing work in this direction. What if they manage it?
In tomorrow’s world, Will we
still be human?
Among many other questions, Laurent Flieder,
a senior lecturer at the University of Paris-X, has wondered about the fate of a possible
cloned child: "What would be the extent of the ravages caused to the psychological
state of a human being by learning that he or she is a copy of his father or of her mother
and that he or she is conceived for this purpose? That he or she owes nothing to one of
the parents and everything to the other? (..) A young clone, looking at his father or her
mother (would see) too how he or she is going to age and perhaps how he or she is going to
die."
As these few examples show, the growing
dissemination of biotechnology’ places us in a radically new situation in our
history. The technique enables man to modify not only plant and animal species, but also
our own genetic characteristics. To transform the human species, what a mind-spinning
responsibility! Seen in another was, because of it, man has been reduced to an organ bank,
to a machine, to an infinitely reproducible object liable to be sold or
engineered…" In completing his total mastery of reality, "says Jean Claude
Guillebaud, "man becomes his own master and manipulator. In other words, he triumphs
by abolishing himself as a person." In the future, if we do not guard against it, we
shall be able to do anything, but will no longer be anything.
The elysee treaty
"le figaro" Newspaper
Interviews M. Jacques Chirac
(Paris, 20 January 2003) FRANCE/GERMANY
Q: Before talking about your
proposals for Europe, what initiatives you are going to take to strengthen Franco-German
cohesion to mark this anniversary?
The President: We’re
going to give a positive review of our achievements and affirm new ambitions. This will
certainly be done, inter alia, at a symbolic Council of French and German Ministers, in
Paris, during which a joint declaration, which builds on the Franco-German Treaty, will be
adopted. Roadmaps will be given to the German and French ministers concerned, with the
obligation to get results.
We have decided to establish, in both
countries, the post of secretary general for cooperation, with two deputies, a French one
in Berlin and a German one in Paris. They will have to give the necessary boost to our
cooperation and thus ensure better coordination of policies.
We also want our parliaments to work more
closely together so that we can harmonize our national legislation where it affects the
lives of our fellow citizens.
And then 22 January is going to become
"France and German day" in all French and German schools.
Finally, there is the issue of language
learning, which remains a major weakness. The French find it hard to learn German and the
Germans have got out of the habit of speaking French. To resolve this problem and
facilitate exchanges in Europe without being subjected to a sort of supremacy of English,
all European children must, from the earliest age, learn two foreign European languages.
Q: For fifty years, the Franco-German
relationship was founde4d on the idea of reconciliation between two peoples. What’s
it going to be founded on now?
The President: We are
reconciled. We must now be a driving force for Europe.
EU/TWO PRESIDENTS
Q: That has led you to make a
Franco-German proposal for a dual presidency for Europe. Doesn’t that risk
introducing an element of confusion at a time when Europe needs to be represented in the
world by a single leading figure?
The President: Today there
are three presidencies in Europe: those of the Council, Commission and Parliament. They
each have their responsibilities. To take decisions and supervise in the case of the
Council. And to initiate and implement EU regulations and legislation in that of the
Commission. The Franco-German proposal is designed to give each of these presidencies,
particularly those of the Council and the Commission, the ability to cope better with the
management of the growing number of increasingly complex problems arising as a result of
the enlargement. As for the European Parliament, it sees its role strengthened since it
will elect the Commission president.
Q: By strengthening the
Commission’s political accountability, aren’t we moving in the opposite
direction to what France was seeking, i.e. greater emphasis on the intergovernmental
model?
The President: We don’t
want to change the balance between the European Council and the Commission. The election
of the Commission president by the European Parliament, with what I hope will be more
authority over the commissioners, will both make the President more accountable and give
him/her a greater ability to take action.
We want too to strengthen the European
Council’s presidency which has been weakened to the extent that it changes every six
months. Getting the president of the Council elected by a qualified majority vote of all
the heads of State and government for either a single term of five years or a
once-renewable one of two and a half years will provide the incumbent with stability and a
long-term mandate. Moreover the president will work full-time and so be unable to combine
EU duties with those of an active head of State or government, if that were the case when
he/she were elected.
QMV/FOREIGN POLICY/PIONEER GROUP
Q: By opting to take foreign policy
decisions by qualified majority voting, doesn’t France risk finding herself in a
minority?
The President: Europe will
exist in the multi-polar world only if it has a security and defence policy, which
presupposes it also having a foreign policy. That’s not likely to clash with
France’s since, fundamentally, France’s interests are totally consistent with
those of Europe. Be it on Iraq, the Middle East, Africa, development or globalization,
I’m virtually certain that France’s position is clearly a majority one.
Q: Doesn’t your idea of a group
of pioneer countries in the foreign policy sphere contradict the proposal designed to
strengthen the Council’s presidency?
The President: There’s
no contradiction. The idea of a pioneer group, which I developed in my address to the
Bundestag, allows a number of countries – and this is even more true in a community
of twenty-five than in one of fifteen-to go faster and further on the foreign policy front
or in other spheres. Look at the euro, it isn’t the currency of all the Fifteen,
Schengen doesn’t include all the Fifteen. The pioneer group will bring together all
those ready to do more. All thos3e who decide to go in this direction must be able to do
so if they have the wherewithal and will.
EU CONSTITUTION
Q: what are Germany and France’s
objectives in Europe?
The President: Our
objectives which are, I think, shared by all our partners, are first of all to place the
European project on new foundations. It is very important to give Europe a Constitution as
I was the first member of the European Council to propose three years ago. A Constitution
which restates and takes on board the common values, particularly those defined in the
Charter of Fundamental Rights, and which says who does what and what everyone’s
responsibilities are.
ENLARGEMENT
Our second objective is to make a success of
the enlargement. In spring 2004, there are going to be ten more of us, providing the
States concerned ratify the treaty. The enlargement isn’t finished. As the founding
fathers wanted, Europe is destined to bring together all the European countries, with a
clear objective: to entrench democracy, eleminat3e war and facilitate economic and social
progress.
EUROPEAN SECURITY AND DEFENCE UNION
THE THIRD OBJECTIVE IS TO C REATE A European
Security and Defence Union, since there can be no great entity, as history shows, without
a defence, or even intervention capability, to protect the values which, increasingly, are
being recognized as universal.
AREA OF PROGRESS, FREEDOM, SECURITY
AND JUSTICE
And the final objective, the essential
objective, is obviously to strengthen Europe as an area of progress, freedom, security and
justice for all its citizens.
These are the objectives which must be served
by more accountable and more effective institutions. The existing institutions are good,
but they require constant adaptation to the actual circumstances prevailing at the time.
Hence the Franco-German contribution to the Convention chaired by M. Giscard
d’Estaing.
FRANCE/GERMANY
Q: Listening to you, we get the
impression that, as if by magic, the difference of views between Germany and France on the
nature of Europe, federation or union of nation-States, has disappeared.
The President: Our different
sensibilities haven’t disappeared, but everyone has realized that if we wanted to
move forward, we had to agree to take account of what each other thinks. That’s an
essential key to resolving today’s problems, not only of Europe, but of the world. |
