In Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood discusses eugenics, which is about encouraging and increasing the reproduction of healthy humans and decreasing the reproduction of people with genetic defects. Because the human race is flawed with humans hurting and killing each other and using up all the planet’s resources, Crake gets rid of them, by creating his own race of people that aren't flawed. This race of people is self-reliant, and won't hurt or kill others. However, eugenics is hardly a new idea. In history, humans have been using eugenics such as Hitler’s Aryan race. In present time, abortions are used for population control and to abort humans with less desirable characteristics. In the future, “designer babies” are a possibility.
Crake creates the BlyssPluss pill that: “a) Would protect the user from all known sexually transmitted diseases, fatal, inconvenient, or merely unsightly; b) Would provide an unlimited supply of libido and sexual prowess, coupled with a general sense of energy and well-being, thus reducing the frustration and blocked testosterone that led to jealousy and violence, and eliminating feelings of low self-worth; c) would prolong youth.” (Atwood, 355). What the consumers are unaware of is that it also sterilizes them. Crake distributes this pill to the world to sterilize the human population in order to save the planet’s resources. In history, eugenics has appeared in Germany where Hitler murdered six million Jewish people in concentration camps. He wanted to create an Aryan race of blonde hair and blue eyed people because they appeared to be the perfect kind of humans.
According to American history: “In 1907, in an attempt to effect God's will while resolving major social problems, the State of Indiana passed the first sterilization law in the United States.” (Lerner, par. 4). “California eventually became the nation's leader in the campaign to sterilize the unfit, by mid-century some sixty thousand Americans had been deemed unfit or too dangerous to be a part of the nation's gene pool and had been sterilized (pp. 47-8). This was accomplished with the specific approval of the Supreme Court of the United States which ruled, in a decision written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.--Buck v. Bell (1927)--that states had a legal right to sterilize their citizens (pp. 151-2).” (Lerner, par. 4). In the past and presently we are sterilizing people who are mentally ill. The phrase “too dangerous” means criminals. Criminals may commit crimes because it’s in their DNA to do so or it could be how they were raised. It’s the age-old question of nature vs. nurture. Or we are who we are partly due to DNA and how we were raised in what environment. If a family raises their children to be interested in academics, then the results would be the children will be focused on academics and not in the arts. The majority of people would say they wouldn’t want to risk not sterilizing a criminal because crimes maybe committed against them by the offspring.
China’s government has created a one child policy to control overpopulation because there are currently over 1 billion people living there. They also have created a way to create eugenics: “In 1995, China passed the Maternal and Infant Health Law, which required medical doctors to conduct prenatal testing and to advise couples with genetic diseases either to not marry or to consider sterilization. In cases where the couple has already conceived and genetic abnormalities in the fetus are suspected, the doctor is to advise abortion”. (Swedin, par.16). “The intent of the 1995 Maternal and Infant Health Law is to remove birth defects from the population, since handicapped people are often condemned to a life of poverty because of the limited social safety net within China.” (Swedin, par.17) In a way nature takes its course because disease kills the ones who are weak, but then humans take part in eugenics by creating laws to discourage unhealthy babies being born.
In the present, there are some basic ways to create eugenics, such as pregnant women are not to drink and smoke so they won’t harm the baby. In the present society, there is euthanasia on people with incurable diseases. Abortion is a form of birth control: “Qiu (Renzong) argues, the Chinese have no moral qualms against abortions, which are a major form of birth control.” (Swedin, par.14). Parents, who find out that their baby is going to have Down syndrome, many of them get an abortion to avoid the emotional and financial strain in raising a child with a genetic defect. The popular news show 20/20 had aired an episode where two people with Down Syndrome got married and decided not to have kids because there will be a high chance that the kid will have Down Syndrome. Some people choose a certain gender because a disease runs in a family and only effects one gender and not the other. Currently, parents already do choose the genders of their babies. In China and India, they value boys so they abort the girls. They choose boys because men make more money than women.
Oryx and Crake discusses the use of genetic engineering in the future. We currently have stem cell research which makes the events in the book plausible. Human cloning is illegal, but giving certain traits to a child through medical science isn’t. This novel discusses the ethics and morals of “designer babies.” “Liberal eugenics is eugenic to the extent that it advocates parental freedom to choose some characteristics of offspring based on the parents' values but limited by the possibility of harm to the resulting children.” (Fenton, 6). Initially that’s what Crake said to Jimmy; that he was going to start a service where parents get to choose what genetic traits that their child will have. It discusses the individual and long term effect of the designer baby when he grows up. This applies to Crake creating his own perfect race of humans called the Crakers because once we create one designer baby; we will create a whole race of them. “Of particular concern would be authoritarian or totalitarian governments that try to genetically program their populations toward docile obedience.” (Swedin, par.23) Crake mentions the exact same thing in the book about how certain government leaders would be interested in creating people that would obey them.
“Most parents seek to give their children every possible advantage, such as sending them to the right school or arranging for specialized care and training. But in the near future, genetic engineering will allow parents to give their children an even greater edge.”
(Swedin, par.22) Charles Darwin had said: “The survival of the fittest.” Now it’s of the socio-economic standards like the smartest and the richest. It is in our human nature to improve one self. Many middle class and rich parents have kids so eventually when we have “designer babies” only the rich can afford it and eventually only the “designers” will exist. Parents want the best education and health for their kids. The rich have advantages like being able to pay for tutors, the best colleges and healthcare for their children. By giving them good DNA to be intelligent and healthy, the parents have achieved an even bigger advantage. “Designers” are smarter, they will then have the smarts to find a cure for cancer and solve problems like global warming. It’s plausible because according to one source: “In the future, genetic engineering will eventually allow us to design children in a test tube, but that goal will be reached through a series of efforts aimed at more modest improvements. At first, the designs will just use probabilities, banking on knowledge of which genetic combinations are usually found in more intelligent people, or which genetic combinations might make the blood more efficient in transporting oxygen and thus increasing physical endurance.” (Swedin, par.8)
“Ever since humans began to domesticate animals and plants, we have been engaged in large-scale bioengineering. New species exist because of our intervention, and many species no longer exist because of our actions. Most landscapes are not exclusively natural, but are a result of human activity.” (Swedin, par.26) Since humans have already done this and it occurs in Oryx and Crake, one part of the book became true. Humans breed animals so the chickens we eat would taste better and our pets would be more attractive and smarter. Atwood takes it to the next level by creating pigoons that have the intelligence of humans.
“Defective genes are now presumably accumulating from generation to generation because natural pruning is no longer taking place. It's a hard thought to digest, but perhaps genetic engineering will be the twin to modern medicine, completely changing how humans reproduce and improving our chances to live productive lives.” (Swedin, par.25). Since genetic defects are increasing, Crake creating the Crakers that have no genetic defects at all is like starting fresh for the new human race. “…such as liberal eugenics and cloning, will destroy what it is to be human as we know it. As Fukuyama puts it, we might bring about "the end of the human species as such." (8) (Fenton, 9). The end of the human race occurs in the book.
Oryx and Crake is Atwood’s prediction of the future of eugenics. By looking at the past and the present, we can see that the plausibility of the Crakers will potentially occur. A perfect race of people will appear due to scientists and doctors, but they may not have the exact characteristics as the Crakers do. Most likely they will be intelligent and beautiful and won’t harm others.
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. USA: Random House 2003.
Fenton, Elizabeth. "Liberal eugenics & human nature against Habermas." The Hastings
Center Report 36.6 (Nov-Dec 2006): 35(8). Academic OneFile. Thomson Gale. Grant MacEwan College. 18 Jan. 2007
Fintel, William A. "In search of the perfect baby.(Correspondence)(Letter to the
editor)." First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life 169 (Jan 2007): 9(2). Academic OneFile. Thomson Gale. Grant MacEwan College. 18 Jan. 2007
Lerner, Saul. "Preaching Eugenics: Religious Leaders and the American Eugenics
Movement.(Book review)." Shofar 25.1 (Fall 2006): 182(4). Academic OneFile. Thomson Gale. Grant MacEwan College. 18 Jan. 2007
Swedin, Eric G. "Designing babies: a eugenics race with China? The rapid pace of
genetic research, the author argues, guarantees that we will see genetically manufactured babies before the end of the century." The Futurist 40.3 (May-June 2006): 18(4). Academic OneFile. Thomson Gale. Grant MacEwan College. 18 Jan. 2007
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