Journal 10/7 - 10/13

During Never Let Me Go, I thought about the individual worth of each human being. Does a cloned human, a mentally unwell human, a physically disabled person, have the same rights as a genetically-original human?

Our laws separate the rights to children from the rights of adults, so should the rights of the unmentionables (mentioned above) be considered permanent children, subject to the rules of their guardian? 

The clones in Never Let Me Go were sheltered, and lived their lives for the cause given to them by their society. Their lives were pre-structured in a destiny similar to modern child soldiers, trafficked too early to know anything of their opportunities outside their current destiny. Grown for a purpose, like animals to the slaughterhouse.

Gattaca and Never Let Me Go both illustrated the prejudice, predilection, and discrimination that results from a society embracing selective breeding. Selective Breeding, or eugenics, can be grouped into two categories: positive eugenics and negative eugenics. Positive eugenics, that is, encouraging "genetically superior" individuals to breed, rivals negative eugenics, or preventing "genetically inferior" individuals from breeding. 

In Gattaca, although society allowing Antione to live, he was discriminated against for being genetically inferior compared to society's standards for newborn babies, and thus, his destiny was pre-determined for low wage jobs. This is positive eugenics, encouraging genetically superior babies to be born through pre-genetic testing and in-vitro fertilization; however, discrimination based on genetic makeup is still negative, society indirectly discourages his existence by limiting his opportunities, or destiny. 

In Never Let Me Go, Kathy's society is negative eugenics, that is, clones cannot have children, and are "genetically inferior". Kathy's destiny is also limited, which begs to add a third category to eugenics, indirect eugenics, which is alive today.

Indirect eugenics would be defined as an indirect way society begets discrimination of an individual because of their genetic makeup, seen in both Gattaca and Never Let Me Go. An example would be the disapproval of a couple keeping a disabled baby, because it goes against natural selection, and the very definition of eugenics, the "hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding" (lecture).