Letters

From the March 2000 issue

(Page 2 of 4)

Crossing Words

I found "From Donald to Deirdre" (December) informative and thought-provoking, and I wish the author well in what seems to be her true identity.

Yet there are two points which, unfortunately, come into sharp conflict. First, the gist of the article seems to be that "crossing," as the author calls it, is and should be an elective process. Thus she argues the classic libertarian view, which I share, that a person's life is his or her own and she or he has the basic right to make decisions regarding it.

However, she also derides Blue Cross for failing to pay for an extremely expensive set of elective procedures. Certainly no insurance company could survive in the marketplace if every elective procedure were covered. What if I decide that the "real" me needs a larger penis or larger breasts? Should these services also be covered? Can we even begin to calculate the costs?

The author then compounds the logical error by pointing out that the operations are reversible, though at an even higher cost than the original procedures. I suppose Blue Cross should pay for that, too? As a Blue Cross policyholder (and shareholder) I can't help but wonder what would happen to my premiums, to say nothing of the company's ability to sustain its business, if it did.

I support the author's right to make her own choices. But if her situation is not, as she says, a disorder or disease but rather a matter of choice, then it's not a health matter, and no health insurance company should have to pay the costs of that choice.

Michael D. Wolk
Boston, MA

Fears of a Clone

Ronald Bailey's "Petri Dish Politics" (December) paints a grim picture of medical advancement if we let the statists get the best of us. But perhaps what's more frightful is that their distrust of stem cell research is nothing new.

When Dolly the sheep gained international fame for her unique genetics--or, more precisely, the lack thereof--I was working at a division of CBS News and listened to senators and leaders in D.C. debate cloning research for six hours. It was an exercise in cowering. Our would-be leaders, Republicans and Democrats alike, spoke in the hellfire-and-brimstone tones of demagogues warning of Armageddon.

Interestingly, the only person I heard support cloning research--and who chastised his small-minded comrades--was Sen. Tom Harkin. The Democrat from Iowa is one of the two leading Senate proponents of human stem cell research.

Robin Brooks
New York, NY
[e-mail]

The physicist Steven Weinberg once remarked that until we have truly solved a problem we do not know how deep it really is. In this spirit, we stand at two removes from the brave new world of biotech hailed by REASON: We don't know how to do the wonderful things that its contributors anticipate. And even if we did, we have no expectation of doing them on a mass scale.

In vitro fertilization is a case in point. Its significance does not lie in having made sex obsolete, for it is costly and cumbersome as a medical procedure. Rather, its importance lies in the joy it has brought to couples, who have had the babies that they otherwise would have been denied.

Similarly, if cloning becomes feasible, its significance will also lie with individuals. Imagine a woman who bears a daughter that is actually her identical twin or another who loves her husband so much that she bears not his baby but his clone.