23 December 2019

It seems to be a person

Medical lawyers propose to introduce a new term "mostly human"

REGNUM

Experts in the field of biomedical law from Stanford University, due to the emergence of new biomedical technologies, genetic engineering, transplantation of artificially grown organs, propose to expand the legal term "human" and introduce a new concept - "essentially human" or "basically human". This is reported by the scientific journal Science (Knoppers, Greely, Biotechnologies nibbling at the legal “human").

In experiments, scientists mix human and animal cells that form tissues, artificially grow human organs inside animals, edit the genome using CRISPR technology, resulting in creatures with a genome that has never been in nature before. Consequently, according to American scientists, new biomedical technologies are blurring the line between who is a person and who is not, and this requires the expansion of the legal concept of "person".

Currently, there are many laws that apply only to people, or only to human tissues, or to the bodies of deceased people. Thus, it is necessary to clarify whether the chimera of a human and an animal with a human brain has human rights? Is an artificially grown body with an unconscious brain a person? Should a cyborg with a robot body and a human brain be responsible for the crime?

To solve the problem, legal scholars suggest adding the word "essentially" or "basically" a person to the term "person". So, for example, if the trial concerns someone who was born with edited DNA, the lawyer will be able to state that the defendant is "basically a person", and therefore can enjoy all the rights due to a person.

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