Should it be legal? - Another view (615 Views)
Posted by:
BitPlayer (IP Logged)
Date: August 02, 2007 04:05PM
The paragraphs that follow are from an editorial in this week's issue of the scientific journal "Nature." They are talking about the use of performance enhancing drugs by human athletes, but I suppose similar arguments can be made regarding thoroughbreds. I'm not endorsing the views expressed, but throwing them out there as food for thought:
"To cheat in a sporting event is a loathsome thing. For as long as the rules of the Tour de France or any sporting event ban the use of performance-enhancing drugs, those who break the rules must be punished whenever possible. But this does not preclude the idea that it may, in time, be necessary to readdress the rules themselves.
As more is learned about how our bodies work, more options become available for altering those workings. To date, most of this alteration has sought to restore function to some sort of baseline. But it is also possible to enhance various functions into the supernormal realm, and the options for this are set to grow ever greater.
The fact that such endeavours will carry risks should not be trivialized. But adults should be allowed to take risks, and experience suggests that they will do so when the benefits on offer are enticing enough. By the end of this century the unenhanced body or mind may well be vanishingly rare.
As this change takes place, we will have to re-examine what we expect of athletes. If spectators are seeking to reset their body mass index through pharmacology, or taking pills that enhance their memory, is it really reasonable that athletes should make do with bodies that have not seen such benefits? The more the public comes to live with the mixed and risk-related benefits of enhancement, the more it will appreciate that allowing such changes need not rob sport of its drama, nor athletes of their need for skill, training, character and dedication.
. . .
As pharmacological enhancement becomes everyday, views of bodily enhancement may evolve sufficiently for sporting rules to change on that, too.
This transition will not be painless. Some people will undoubtedly harm themselves through the use of enhancements, and there would need to be special protection for children. That said, athletes harm themselves in other forms of training, too. They may harm themselves less with drugs when doctors can be openly involved and masking agents dispensed with."