The cover article in the latest issue of ESPN Magazine is on the new generation of prosthetics and the difference they’re starting to make in the world of sports; not only are they becoming sophisticated enough to allow athletes who have had limbs amputated to compete on a level playing field with those who haven’t, some folks are beginning to be concerned that they might provide a competitive advantage. In a classic knee-jerk overreaction, sports governing bodies have begun to respond, not by developing intelligent guidelines for the use of prostheses, but by banning them. Clearly, this isn’t fair.
The bottom line is this: Sports do not need knee-jerk segregation, they need rational and fair regulation. Every organized sport begins the same way, with the creation of rules. We then establish technological limits, as with horsepower in auto racing, stick curvature in hockey, bike weight in cycling. As sports progress, those rules are sometimes altered. The USGA, for instance, responded to advances in club technology by legalizing metal heads in the early ’80s. In Chariots of Fire, the hero comes under heavy scrutiny for using his era’s version of steroids: a coach, at a time when the sport frowned upon outside assistance. So if we can adjust rules of sports to the time, why not for prosthetics? Create a panel of scientists and athletes, able-bodied and disabled, and ask them to determine what’s fair. One example: We know the maximum energy return of the human ankle, so that measurement could be the limit for the spring of a prosthetic ankle. That type of consideration is much fairer than simply locking out an entire group of athletes.
If prosthetic technology can be used to enable people to compete on an even footing (so to speak), then it should be allowed for that purpose; obviously, the rules need to be carefully tuned to be as fair as possible, but the relative difficulty of that task should not be an excuse for not attempting it.There is, however, a deeper concern here.
If anyone can predict what sports will look like in 2050, it’s [Hugh] Herr, who lost his legs 26 years ago in a climbing accident. Herr wears robotic limbs with motorized ankles and insists he doesn’t want his human legs back because soon they’ll be archaic. “People have always thought the human body is the ideal,” he says. “It’s not.” . . .Bioethicist Andy Miah predicts that one day, “it will be an imperative, and the responsible course of action, to reinforce one’s body through prosthesis when competing at an elite level.” In other words, all pros will have engineered body parts. History will view the steroids witch hunt as a silly attempt to keep athletes from using technology to help regenerate after a season of pain. “In many ways, we’re facing the advent of the bionic man,” says MLS commissioner Don Garber. “It’s something our industry has to start thinking about.”
This is worrisome talk. The desire for a superhuman/post-human existence has done a fair bit of damage over the years, and as science starts to make “improving” ourselves a near-future possibility, we need to be very, very careful with that. We simply are not wise enough or knowledgeable enough to make playing God with our bodies a good idea; and I say that not only as a Christian but as a longtime reader of science fiction. The downside of trying to re-engineer the human body is just too great; and honestly, I don’t think the upside is worth it. If we “improve” everyone, what have we really gained?; and if we only “improve” some, haven’t we only taken the inequalities among people that already exist and made them worse? Do we really need more reasons for some people to think they’re better than others? These are the things we need to think about very carefully before we start declaring our bodies obsolete.