Visual Advocacy and Prosthetic Parity

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 Imagine that you are an Olympic level athlete. That you are among the fastest, the strongest people in the entire world. You glory in the competition, exalt in that ability. Now imagine that that has been taken away from you, in a single, fell swoop. An accident beyond your control, a disease, maybe even a terrorist attack has taken something from you, stolen that ability from you. Maybe you’ve lost your arm, your leg, your sight. But we’ve advanced medical technology to a point that’s approaching science fiction rather than science writing. That loss can be corrected, you can be given back your sight, your ability to walk, the use of a hand. You’ve made your painstaking way through months or years of physical therapy to get used to it. You’ve rewritten everything in your life, everything you do, every action in such a way that despite a new and differently functioning limb, you can do anything anyone else can. You’ve even managed to claw your way back up through the Olympic Trials to reach the plateau your competitors stand on; only to be told that “We’re sorry, but you cannot compete.” But Why? You can swim faster, run farther, cycle around anyone else on the planet while playing ping pong. You could shoot a fly out of the air, and still hit the bullseye in doing so. “You cannot compete, because the Olympic Games are a competition of the best and strongest humans on the planet… and you are no longer completely human,” by  their definition.

The Olympic committee has begun to apparently consider a policy of disallowing athletes who are not able bodied to compete in the regular Olympic games. Arguments have been volleyed from the Olympic stadium to the halls of discussion about Pistorius’ fitness to compete; not because he cannot compete on an even level with the able bodied runners, but because he competes at a higher level than they can. The issue is that his prosthetic limbs are lighter than the lower leg of an able bodied runner, and give him a marked advantage in the speed that he can run because of this. Thus far, this is being considered as a policy issue to ensure that the athletes don’t hit a point where the newest and greatest method of performance enhancement is to have limbs purposely replaced with bionic enhancements. This implies that those limbs or enhancements would put them on a level that an un-augmented human could not match, and creates a distinction that frankly comes down to whether or not the person in question is in fact fully human anymore.

We cannot allow something like that to happen. People will always attempt to better themselves, and to enhance their performance in any area – drugs, exercises, diets, and bionic enhancements or replacements, necessary or not are frankly the next step in the cycle. Its by no means surprising that people would do something of that nature, either to attempt to improve themselves for their sport, or simply because they think its cool. An attempt to define what “humanity” entails is something that can only lead to problems down the road, and not only in a science fiction sense. It would likely lead to some sort of division between human and enhanced, cyborg, or whatever name would appear to evoke the same intent, which would lead to friction and legal difficulties, and eventually, knowing human nature, open revolt from one side and eventual war. Remember the proof of it that’s happened in the history of not just the US, but the entire world – slaves were thought of as less than human in several cultures; the US worst of all. And eventually, that definition of someone as less than human led to revolt and open rebellion, followed by civil war as people came down on different sides of the issue.

The problem is, there’s already something of a divide between the able bodied and the disabled – much of the time, there is a huge difference in treatment between disabled people and able bodied, not just in the Olympics, but in society, hospitality, and even insurance. The necessity of having handicap accessible restrooms and entrances is one thing. That ensures that we all are on the same level, and keeps everyone that way. But the definition of disability is one that, especially in the legal definition in the US, doesn’t necessarily apply to some people with prosthetic replacements – Oscar Pistorius, for example, by the Americans with Disabilities Act, would essentially be considered able bodied. If this divide becomes one that enters law and national policy, they we could be looking at a new classification of “able bodied”, as enhanced becomes an option. If there becomes a new class, someone is going to take that as proof that they are above or below the rest of us with “natural” bodies, likely on both sides. What we all need to remember is that whatever parts may be missing or may have been added, we are all humans. Its not a matter of altered, able bodied, enabled or disabled. We all need to remember that whatever changes may come, people are people. We cannot throw that humanity away, or assume that it has been thrown away by others to fit them into our view of things. Consider the number of scandals that have come to light of Olympic athletes on performance enhancing substances or methods – they’re still considered human, even though some of what they’ve done to themselves may cause more permanent changes than the removal of a limb would, especially with a bionic replacement or enhancement. If they’re still human after all that, then a man whose legs have been replaced with plastic must be as well.