Bush Bioethicist Thinks Canadians Should Die

Toronto Transhumanist Association opposes the life extension position of Leon Kass, chairman of the US Presidents Council on Bioethics, who will be speaking at the University of Toronto on December 2

Toronto, Ontario, November 25, 2002 -- Most people love healthy life and want to extend it for as long as possible. If the chairman of the US Presidents 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 hes 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 Torontos 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 Kasss chairmanship of the US Presidents 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 Kasss 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 wont have major implications?"

Whats 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 eldery," 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 eldery 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 eldery 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 youre interested in learning more, please visit our Website at http://toronto.transhumanism.com or email george@betterhumans.com.