Do you think your neighbors should get to vote on whom you marry? Whether you should be able to use contraception? Likely not. So why should people get to vote on whether you can increase your healthy lifespan using transformative technologies? For example, using human embryonic stem cell lines to cure your illnesses? And why should balloting limit your access to new reprogenetic technologies? Unfortunately, contemporary history shows that majorities in modern democracies are only too happy to ban technologies (e.g., stem cells, cloning, PGD) that are the precursors to transhuman progress. As philosopher Jurgen Habermas noted, for modern liberals “human rights enjoy normative priority over democracy, and the constitutional separation of powers has priority over the will of the democratic legislature.” As a minority preference (at least for now) tranhumanists must argue for liberty and oppose democratic authoritarianism. When people of good will deeply disagree on moral issues that don't involve the prevention of force or fraud, it is a fraught exercise to submit their disagreement to a panel of political appointees or a democratic vote. That way leads to intolerance, repression, and social conflict. Ronald Bailey is the award-winning science correspondent for Reason magazine and Reason.com, where he writes a weekly science and technology column. Bailey is the author of the book Liberation Biology: The Moral and Scientific Case for the Biotech Revolution (Prometheus, 2005), and his work was featured in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004. In 2006, Bailey was shortlisted by the editors of Nature Biotechnology as one of the personalities who have made the "most significant contributions" to biotechnology in the last 10 years. From 1987 to 1990, Bailey was a staff writer for Forbes magazine, covering economic, scientific and business topics. His articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Commentary, The Public Interest, Smithsonian, Chief Executive, TechCentralStation, National Review, Reader's Digest and many other publications. Prior to joining Reason in 1997, Bailey produced several weekly national public television series including Think Tank and TechnoPolitics, as well as several documentaries for PBS television and ABC News. In 1993, he was the Warren T. Brookes Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Bailey won a 2004 Southern California Journalism Award for best magazine feature for his story, "The Battle For Your Brain," which delved into the ethical and political conflicts over new brain enhancement technologies. In 2005, Bailey won a first place Southern California Journalism Award for best online commentary for his series on creationism, "Creation Summer Camp". Bailey is the editor of several books, including Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths: How the Environmental Movement Uses False Science to Scare Us to Death (Prima Publishing, 2002), Earth Report 2000: Revisiting The True State of The Planet (McGraw Hill, 1999), and The True State of the Planet (The Free Press, 1995). He is the author of ECOSCAM: The False Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse (St. Martins Press, 1993). Bailey has appeared on numerous television and radio programs, including the NBC Nightly News, PBS' Newshour, several National Public Radio programs, and various C-SPAN programs. He has lectured at Harvard University, Yale University, Morehouse University, Princeton University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, American University, the University of Virginia, McGill University, the Medical University of South Carolina, University of Alaska-Anchorage, University of Maryland-Baltimore County, Longwood University, Universite de Quebec, Rochester Institute of Technology, Universidad de San Andreas (Argentina), the Cato Institute, the Foundation for the Future, the Association for Politics a

1. The Democratic Threat to
Transhumanism
Ronald Bailey

2. Democratic Transhumanism’s
Hope
We need a
strong
democratic state
that protects the
right of avant
garde minorities
to innovate and
experiment with
their own bodies
and minds. -

3. Ohio Senate Votes to Ban
Minotaurs
Senate Bill 243 would
ban:
(e) An embryo produced
by introducing a
human nucleus into a
nonhuman egg;
(h) A nonhuman life form
engineered such that
it contains a human
brain or a brain
derived wholly from
human neural tissues.

4. Other Benighted Places that Ban
Human-Animal Chimeras and
Arizona
Louisiana
Oklahoma
Canada
France
Germany
Spain
Italy
Australia

5. Majoritarian Tyranny
 1873— Comstock Act prohibits
advertisements, information, and
distribution of birth control
 1910 – abortion illegal in all states except
one
 1907 – Indiana first “eugenics” law –
eventually adopted by 30 states
 1924 – Virginia passes “Racial Integrity Act”
– eventually enacted by 38 states
 2003 – Gay sex still illegal in 14 states
 2009 – 30 states have adopted

6. Eggs Eggs Inheritable Cloning Cloning Sex
Country PGD Surrogacy
Reprod Research Gen Mod Reprod Medical Selection
Commercial Commercial Non-med Non-med Commercial
Australia Prohibited Prohibited Regulated
Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited
Austria Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited
Commercial Commercial Non-med Non-med Commercial
Canada Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited
Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited
Commercial Commercial Non-med Non-med
France Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited
allowed Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited
Non-med
Germany Prohibited ? Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited
Prohibited
Non-med Non-Med
Italy Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited
Prohibited Prohibited
Commercial
Japan Prohibited Prohibited No policy Prohibited Regulated No policy Unrecognized
Prohibited
Non-med Non-med
Norway Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited
prohibited Prohibited
Sweden permitted permitted Prohibited ? Prohibited Regulated ? Prohibited
Switzerland Prohibited ? Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited
United Commercial Commercial Non-med Non-med Commercial
Prohibited Prohibited Regulated
Kingdom Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited Prohibited
United States No policy No policy No policy No policy No policy No policy No policy No policy

8. Transhumanism: A Current
Matter of Conscience and a
CONSCIENCE CIVIL RIGHT