Designer Immortality

For much of her life, Jeanne Calment’s big claim to fame was that she sold pencils to Vincent van Gogh in her youth. But by the time she died in August of 1997, this charming Frenchwoman had made her way into the Guinness Book of World Records for a grander accomplishment. She had become the longest-lived human on record, dwelling 122 years, 5 months and 14 days on earth. [US News and World Report, 3/20/00] But that record isn’t going to last long, says Gregory Stock, director of Medicine, Technology and Society at the UCLA Medical School.

Two biological roadblocks keep us from going much beyond the 70-90 that is now the norm. One is something called “free radicals:” highly unstable molecules that tear destructively through cells. That’s what “anti-oxidant” nutritional supplements are supposed to fight, and geneticists are looking into how to tinker with this problem.

But even more critical to the aging process is a special little strand of DNA called a telomere. Each time a cell divides, the strand gets a bit shorter, like a loaf of bread as you cut slices off. When it runs out, the cell can’t divide any longer; it just ages and dies. But an enzyme called telomerase stops the process. It keeps rebuilding that little DNA strand over and over again. At least in the lab. There’s a Petri dish full of human cells at Geron Corp. that have been replicating themselves for more than 200 human lifetimes.

That continued renewal of something that should run out makes me think of a couple of stories. You may recall the miracle of Hannukah: a couple of hundred years before Christ, after the temple in Jerusalem was desecrated by the Syrian king Antiochus IV, there was only enough non-desecrated oil to last for 1 day; but it miraculously continued to burn for 8 days until new oil could be obtained. And then there’s the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath: she fed him for the three years God withheld rain from the land from a jar of flour and a jug of oil that never ran out.

Anyway, virtual immortality might indeed be just around the corner... it does seem miraculous, doesn’t it? But instead of the miracles from Israel’s history, I think this is a little more like the fairy tale about the goose that laid the golden egg. Do you remember that one? Every day the goose laid a golden egg, and for a while this was all they wanted. But eventually they became greedy and killed the goose to see where the gold came from. And of course, that meant no more golden eggs.

Greed killed the goose, and greed - along with the rest of the seven deadly sins - is the curse that comes along with the promise of lab-created immortality.

Think of the ethical dilemmas ... How can we justify trying to live forever when tuberculosis still kills over a million people a year? When in this country antibiotic-resistant infections - another side effect of the search for immortality - are popping up ever more frequently in our hospitals? Did you know that the bodies of Americans don’t decay as quickly as bodies in less “developed” countries because of the high quantity of preservatives we put in our food? How ironic that this lure of immortality should surface side-by-side with the debate over assisted suicide.

Think of the side effects of adding mortality to the already appalling divide between the haves and have-nots. Or, if it becomes another right, what about pollution and overcrowding, and all the problems that come along with that? Many climate change alarmists advocate drastic curtailment of human reproduction in order to avoid contributing to the problem. On one end, declining birth rates, on the other artificial life extensions....

Rabbi Neil Gilman of the Jewish Theological Seminary says, “God is life itself, and we are not only justified, but obligated, to do everything we can to extend life.” But other theologians - and not only Christians - feel that attempts to live indefinitely are a slap in the face of God, that “God created death for a good reason, and to destroy death would destroy our own humanity.” I am one of those.

Because death is not the only evil in this world. Death is the last enemy to be defeated, but not the only one, and not the cruelest one. God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden for a good reason.

"Then YHWH God said, 'See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever'-- therefore YHWH God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken." [Gen 3:22-23]