BooneThink

If you are a parent, have you thought about the connection between your children and athletics? More specifically, have you any idea of the people who are betting that you will buy into human enhancement? The role of genetics in sports is just around the corner. Maybe you should think about whether it is a good idea today while your children are still young. The technologies for human enhancement are in the future, but not too far. In fact, just over the horizon is an awakening! That is why it is likely that the use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis is something you should think about. Screening embryos for genetic traits isn’t athletics as usual. It is about DNA winning-at-all-cost. Is that a good thing?

There isn’t any question that athletics is a battlefield. Athletes are already trying to access genetic intervention for physical enhancement (refer to Scientific American, July 2004). By now, everyone should know that athletes are big-time steroid users and everything else they can get their hands on to get the medal. Hardly anyone thinks of the bad effects anymore. Regardless of Congress signing into law HR 6344 in 2006, gene doping is big time U.S.A. Sports! Sure, of course, athletes work hard. They are dedicated to their sport. Achievement is everything. Winning is even more. But, “cheating” is still cheating! Hello, wake up athletes, coaches, trainers, doctors, exercise physiologists, and anyone else involved, including parents, the use of performance-enhancing drugs or performance-enhancing genetic modifications to gene-doping is unethical.

Athletes, amateur or professional, regardless of age, keep sports clean. Celebrate sports for what it should be, not for what it is.