X-Men Aren't Human:
It seems that discussions about whether the equal protection clause applies to the X-Men and other mutants is moot. As the Disenchanted Idealist notes, a federal court has already determined that the X-Men (and other superheroes) are "nonhuman creatures," at least for the purposes of U.S. trade law.
Related Posts (on one page):
- X-Men Aren't Human:
- Is Anti-Mutant Bias Invidious Discrimination?
1) I would note that clones are presumably neither "discrete" nor "insular," unless government policies in the future make them so. This is different from mutants, many of whom are "discrete" and some of whom are "insular." I'm a big fan, and could give examples if necessary.
2) It's unclear whether either cloning or mutation is "immutable." I think there's a good argument that there's no status of a clone created as an "accident of birth." The only accident of birth is the DNA sample. The conditions that creates the status of clone are the existence of another person with the same DNA and society's perception thereof. The second has nothing to do with birth; the first is no accident.
3) Lastly, clones don't exist yet. I think it would be hard to maintain any "history of purposeful unequal treatment" as a result. Yet, I wonder if anyone doubts that human clones would suffer discrimination in society if they ever came into being and that this discrimination would be unfair to them, or at the least non-meritocratic. Should there really be a waiting period on unjust discrimination?
Maybe resurrecting an lighthearted topic but maybe genuinely worthwhile questions too.
Mutations can be even less exotic, though. Shall we consider those with brown eyes (as opposed to blue) or brown hair (as opposed to blond) as nonhuman since they have different mutations of certain genes? What about those who have blond hair and blue eyes, but had a parent or grandparent without, and thus may well carry the mutation even if they don't express it?
Or what about the Y chromosome? It's a wretched malformed mutant of the X chromosome, and thus patently malign. Down with males! Frauen, Frauen Über Alles!
I'm pretty sure this is incorrect. Scientists are able distinguish human from DNA from non-human, such as when bone fragments are found. We are not all the same, but we all have genetic material that looks much more like that of other humans, than non-humans.
The interesting question may be this: Since human DNA presumably runs a range, what happens if we have beings that are outliers, and the range is significantly expanded? In other words, if you could draw a line between a human and an ape, with each dot being a creature of some sort, that creature sooner or later stops being a human and begins being an ape. Right? (I'm not very confident of my knowledge here, but it's interesting).
Furthermore, the "right to mutate" is an inherent, Natural Right, in the Lockean sense, in that, in a state of nature, where evolution is the primary Objective Law, mutation is not just a right, it just IS, like gravity or the need to breath air. It is a prerequisite of existence as an intelligent being.
The bioluddite conservative bogosities promulgated by the likes of Leon Kass are highly offensive and logically unsupported. Kass argues that transhumanists, who he regards as "the greatest threat" of this century (greater, apparently, than islamofascists, though I know of no transhumanist terrorist cells), threaten our liberties by proposing the improvement/enhancement of individuals genes by their own choice.
"Humanness" is also not the qualifier determining whether one has rights. The qualifier is whether one is a "person". I shall note that corporations are persons, yet they do not posess one spec of human DNA in the language of their corporate charters or bylaws. Corporations are, therefore, "non-human creatures" while at the same time, X-men, if they were not created in a lab, qualify as "natural persons" since their mutations are the result of natural conditions their parental zygotes were subject to, particularly the background radiation and isotopic distribution, that causes mutations. Conversely, corporations, as creatures of the state (and being that the state is a creature of man, any X-men created in the lab would be creatures of man as well) are "artificial persons".
As mutation is a fact of nature, happening all the time, using it as a condition of disqualification for individual rights is unsupported by the facts, and even as non-human persons (corporations) still enjoy rights under our legal system, it is clear that the oppression of the X-men is unconstitutional, specifically a violation of the 14th amendment (see the Slaughterhouse cases).
Unless, of course, the possessor or the human DNA is living inside of a womb.
The question is, could you have a non-human citizen? What is Kal-El's legal status? (And how does his parent's use of a uterine replicator affect the legal definition of his place of birth?)
The Natural Law argument doesn't favor mutants over baseline humans, or vice versa. The point is it denies that there is a distinction: given that evolution is a natural stochastic process, a natural born mutant has the same legal status as a natural born baseline human (what is, after all, the "official" human genome and who decided?).
Magneto has no more right to decide what the official human genome (or mutant genome) is than the US Government, or Adolf Hitler. The point of Magneto is as a metaphor of the prisoner internalizing his tormentor (just as Hitler was himself an illegitimate child of his servant mother and her Jewish employer) as a means of eradicating his connectedness to others.
Similarly, an artificially created mutant (while Wolverine's healing abilities are his real mutation, his overt "weapon" are the lab-installed adamantium claws) is an artificial person just as a corporation is (though one wonders if a person who receives in vitro genetic therapy for a malady is to be considered an "artificial person" as well).
Personhood has nothing to do with genes. Associating personhood with genes has been the lesson that the X-Men comic have sought to teach for decades, apparently in vain, misunderestimating the obtuseness and ignorance of man. That a overeducated boob like Leon Kass can't seem to get this point bodes ill for our future.
Suppose we decode the dolphin language, I said, and we learn that they *have* a language, a culture, literature, history, etc. Would it be wrong then to kill them?
"Nope" won, by about a 2:1 ration IIRC.
Ah...and it us, as well. So life, in the state of nature between species, becomes nasty, brutish, and short.
I think you're overstating things a bit to say clones and identical twins are indistinguishable.
For one, identical twins grow up at the same point in time (give or take a few minutes), and often live in the same place. Clones could live in radically different environments.
Moreover, the unironic distinction I have most in mind is my presupposition that human clones would be socially discriminated against. I do not believe identical twins face this problem today, nor would they be likely to in a cloning era. Clones would.
So my question is very directly whether clones could be constitutionally protected despite, as an entirely new social element, they have no "history" of purposeful unequal treatment to which to point.
Or, to paraphrase:
"Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?"
Just a query.
-Mackey
Goodness, no. DNA is DNA, and it's exactly the same molecule from fruit flies to humans. What differs is (1) the pattern of genes in it, i.e. the genome, and (2) the way the stuff is physically packaged, i.e. the chromosomes. There is some variation in the genes themselves, but less than you might think. Many genes, especially for the most fundamental proteins, stuff like collagen or cytochromes, are quite similar (the biologists say "homologous") between species as separated as humans and soybeans.
A definition of humans based purely on their DNA is bogus, anyway. Huge amounts of human DNA is garbage, and it also contains many "fossil" genes that still exist but which are never transcribed. Any given human could have great big chunks of his nonfunctional DNA chopped out without changing him one tiny bit.
One might think of basing the definition purely on the functional bits of human DNA, but that is trickier than it sounds: what exactly gets transcribed -- what is functional -- depends in subtle ways on the cellular environment. (Has to: otherwise brain cells might transcribe the genes on their DNA that code for making digestive enzymes, et cetera.) A human being can't be defined as just the DNA: the definition must include some (unknown amount of) detail about the cellular machinery that will transcribe it.
Also, the X-Men aren't another species unless they can no longer breed with humans. I forget if that was ever put to the test by Marvel.
You have proof, I presume, that Hitler was Jewish? Because you sound so sure, and yet, the world continues to believe that what you assert is pure fiction.
Mutants do breed with humans, probably too numerous to count all of those who have had children. Yet -- Lions and Tigers breed with one another. Don't cross-species breeds always produce sterile offspring (like mules). Would the real test be if human/mutant offspring were sterile.
But then again, give that two humans produce mutants, it's likely that the whole mutant is another species is bogus. No mutant is simply having a "mutant" gene.
This might actually make good fodder for [i]X-Men 4[/i].
Eh, well, OK, good point. The division between species can get a little fuzzy. But I believe almost all cross-species copulation is fruitless, and mules are the rare exception between species that are very close, e.g. horses and donkeys.
So I suppose the X-Men can call themselves a new species if they can still breed with H. sapiens but their mutual offspring are sterile.
At least as late as 1992, it appears that 100,0000 years ago, there were three distinct almost species of man, an African version, an Asian version, and Neanderthals. We are primarily descended from the African version. But interestingly, the Asian version apparently bred back in, but the Neanderthals did not (or there is no evidence of that yet). So, east-Asian Humans apparently have some genetic forebearers that the rest of us do not. These east-Asians are mostly African descended, but have some Asian version genetic material that the rest of us do not.
But then I went an reread the Declaration of Independence, which states that: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness", and I was struck by the fact that arguably their "creator" could be considered a scientist in a lab somewhere, and he could logically endow them with whatever rights he had, and, if that were the case, then why would they be unailenable?