Every four years, the world gets to watch a morality play acted out on the stage of global athletic competition. Of course, I’m talking about the summer Olympics. The actors include athletes, trainers, the International Olympics Committee, sports associations, and the fans. The moral in question? Whether the athletes “played clean,” or had an unfair advantage, perhaps through blood doping, drugs, artificial limbs, or something else.
One recent controversial technology is the full-length Speedo LZR (“lazer”) Racer bodysuits that dominated the Beijing Olympics. In the year after the 2008 Olympics, an incredible 93 world records were broken by swimmers wearing the full-lengthbodysuit. FINA, the international governing body of swimming, decided it was time to put an end to the technological arms race dominating the field, and banned the suits. Critics of the bodysuits argued that their use was essentially “technological doping,” an enhancement that was unfair to the other athletes who chose to stick to “low-tech” swimsuits.[1]
The bodysuits can easily be seen and removed. But what about technology-driven enhancements to the body itself? These invisible biomedical and technological options are driving another kind of technological arms race. This morality play does not have an easy answer such as a total ban. When does a drug cross the line from being a therapy for, say, a hyperactive child, and become an enhancement for a college student who wants to ace his final exams? When is plastic surgery reconstructive or therapeutic, and when is it merely cosmetic?
Once the Speedo bodysuit was introduced, and record after record was shattered, everyone wanted one, and manufacturers competed to design even better suits. The pressure to conform in order to compete was extraordinary, and costly, at $1,000 per suit. In a culture where youth, beauty, and superior performance are held as human ideals, conformity can drive people to embrace enhancements such as cosmetic surgery and neural stimulants. It’s a slippery slope, and there’s no limit to what we can spend or desire.
This raises the question: is it me, or is it the drug that is responsible for my academic achievement? Am I joining a costly enhancement competition under the pretext of “being the best me I can be?” These challenging questions about what we call “human flourishing” often go to the core of who we are. We must be candid about our motivations. This requires courage: it may be easy to detect what is unfair in athletic competition, but it is harder to draw the moral line in the much more popular race for physical appearance or mental alertness.
FINA made a gutsy move in banning the high-tech bodysuits. As “everyday bioethicists” we may need to make the same call. In a sense, we are writing our own morality play. Let’s make it a good one.
[1]“Fina extends swimsuit regulations,” BBC News, March 19, 2009 http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympic_games/7944084.stm (accessed June 25, 2012).