Finding and Sharing New Frames for Enhancement Discourses?

By Shawn Harmon

Frames are associations that ‘cluster around a single image or phrase, directing the reader into certain familiar channels of cognition’ (Huxford, 2000). Often these frames are less ‘in’ the text, and more projected ‘onto’ the text by the reader on the basis of cues or invitations. Framing is often a critical component of presenting information for consumption, and so for making sense of the world (Cappella and Jamieson, 1997; Fowler, 1991). One of the central frames for the ethical discourses around technology-instigated enhancements in human beings has been that of ‘human nature’, a frame that often allied to competing imaginaries, one utopian and the other dystopian. Those opposed to enhancement are concerned about a loss of humanity, and they construct dystopian narratives characterised by disembodiment, inequality, and a loss of touch with our nature. Those who embrace enhancement see human nature as dynamic and evolutionary, pushing against and beyond limitations, and they construct utopian narratives in which people can better align their physiology with their identity; it is a future of ‘freedom to’ and ‘freedom from’, both grounded in how technology will allow us to unshackle our true self.

Essay - From superheroes to science fiction: Archetypes of enhancement in British comics

By Michael Morrison, Oxford, HeLEX

‘The comic book heroes I know of, including the ones I created, were created out of a cultural environment of the time, and a perception of audience acceptance […] When this reader-contact was unerring creators succeeded in producing popular mythical heroes.’ Will Eisner

There is a strong case to be made that superheroes are a quintessentially American phenomenon. Comics, in the form of humour and adventure strips were a common feature of many US newspapers from the beginning of the twentieth century. In the 1930s, US publishers began to repackage reprinted newspaper strips as 32 or 64 page collections. The popularity of these reprints soon led to a demand for new material and new (and not yet copyrighted) characters. Adventure strips drew on a wide range of influences, from ‘Western’ stories featuring fictionalised exploits of famous movie cowboys like Roy Rogers, adaptations of existing works like Tarzan and The Three Musketeers, to crime novels and especially popular ‘pulp’ serials of the day, such as The Shadow. The latter, in particular gave rise to the first tales of costumed crime fighters, which were to have a major influence on the nascent comic-book industry. In a highly competitive market, it was not long before someone came up with the idea of a costumed adventurer with powers above and beyond the range of heroic attributes common to the competing milieu of rival adventurers.

The bioethics of transnational commercial pregnancy: reflections on the J Kenyon Mason Annual Lecture with Prof Francoise Baylis

By Agomoni Ganguli Mitra

It isn’t every day that you get to spend a winter evening huddled in a distinguished, old anatomy lecture theatre to listen to some of your favourite topics—social justice, women’s health, India and assisted reproduction—in a captivating talk, followed by a warm, informal exchange over a glass of wine. Yet, last Thursday, was one such evening for me, when the Mason Institute had the pleasure of hosting its J Kenyon Mason Annual Lecture with visiting speaker Professor Françoise Baylis, professor and Canada Research Chair in Bioethics and Philosophy at Dalhousie University. If the steep benches of the University’s Anatomical Museum were enough to give you a head rush, the implications of Prof Baylis’s talk soon grounded you to a rather sombre reality.

Broadening the Medical Ethics Perspective Through Dance

By Shawn Harmon

Answers Too Easily Attained?
One of the fundamental questions that is asked through the field of ethics is: ‘How should we live?’ This question must also be central to medical ethics, or ‘bioethics’. However, we seem to believe that we have answered this question, and we have settled into a comfortable application of that answer across a range of clinical circumstances and technological deployments:

  We should live independently and autonomously, without coercion or interference, with few imposed duties and little sense of obligation, free to avoid risk and to vigorously protect our physical and emotional integrity against state organs, private entities, and individuals. 

While this is an oversimplification, the majority of substantive assessments will either explicitly or implicitly begin from a foundational proposition not far removed. The premise is not generally objectionable, but the lack of depth in our ethical reflexivity is disheartening. How have we embedded this premise so deeply that we proceed from it in most every medical and research encounter?