From: George Dvorsky (sentdev@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Nov 27 2002 - 19:31:38 MST
The following press release was issued to various Toronto and Canadian media
contacts on November 27, 2002.
=============================================
Bush Bioethicist Thinks Canadians Should Die
Toronto Transhumanist Association opposes the life extension position of
Leon Kass, chairman of the US President’s Council on Bioethics, who will be
speaking at the University of Toronto on December 2
Toronto, Ontario, November 27, 2002 -- Most people love healthy life and
want to extend it for as long as possible. If the chairman of the US
President’s Council on Bioethics had his way, however, all human life would
come with a death sentence.
Dr. Leon Kass is a well-known conservative bioethicist. He has spoken out
against affirmative action and complained about young women putting off
childbirth to build careers. He has criticized the movement towards
feminism, gay rights, divorce, single parenthood and premarital sex. He is
opposed to abortion, therapeutic cloning and stem-cell research that offers
hope for treating many debilitating conditions.
And on December 2, 2002 he’s coming to Toronto to push a conservative
position on extending healthy lifespan in a talk called “Why Not
Immortality,” which will be the Ninth Annual Alloway lecture of the
University of Toronto’s Joint Centre for Bioethics.
In a previous talk called “L'Chaim and Its Limits: Why Not Immortality?” Dr.
Kass made his position on life extension quite clear: “Biological
considerations aside, simply to covet a prolonged life span for ourselves is
both a sign and a cause of our failure to open ourselves to procreation and
to any higher purpose. It is probably no accident that it is a generation
whose intelligentsia proclaim the death of God and the meaninglessness of
life that embarks on life's indefinite prolongation and that seeks to cure
the emptiness of life by extending it forever,” Kass said in that talk.
“Confronted with the growing moral challenges posed by biomedical
technology, let us resist the siren song of the conquest of aging and
death.”
While Kass is entitled to his opinions, the Toronto Transhumanist
Association is calling on journalists to take this opportunity to examine
the issue of life extension and the dangers posed by Kass’s chairmanship of
the US President’s Council on Bioethics. The TTA believes that life
extension is a personal choice and that research into extending healthy
lifespan should continue unencumbered by religiously influenced government
policy.
“Nobody is denying that life extension poses challenges,” says TTA president
Simon Smith. “But the goal should be to confront those challenges through an
informed dialogue, not through the imposition of a conservative agenda.
People listening to Kass’s talk should remember his position. He influences
the direction of US government policy on aging- and health-related research,
funding and legislation. The US in turn influences the world. If Kass thinks
life extension is a bad idea, can we honestly expect that it won’t have
major implications?”
What’s worse, while claiming to be a defender of human dignity, Kass has
essentially declared that not all people are equal when it comes to the care
they can come to expect. “Kass represents an affront to the rights of the
elderly,” says TTA vice-president George Dvorsky. “The aging Baby Boomer
population needs to take heed of this man and his stance against progressive
health technologies, particularly as they apply to medical practices that
can extend life and the treatment of suffering and aging itself. Kass is
trying to convince all elderly people that they should complacently accept
and deal with all aging-related diseases and simply shut up and die. As a
result, he has not only revealed a discriminatory stance that targets the
elderly and the kind of care they are legally entitled to, but he has also
exposed his pro-death agenda.”
About the Toronto Transhumanist Association
The Toronto Transhumanist Association (TTA) is a chapter of the World
Transhumanist Association, a global organization founded in 1998 to support
discussion, research and public awareness of Transhumanist thinking. There
are currently more than 50 formed or forming chapters of the World
Transhumanist Association around the world.
If you’re interested in learning more, please visit our Website at
http://toronto.transhumanism.com or email george@betterhumans.com.
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