Treatment of Enhancement? It All Depends
A difference between acceptable and unacceptable performance enhancers may be the distinction between therapy and enhancement. It may be argued that substances or procedures linked with therapy is good while performance enhancers used for the sole purpose of enhancement is suspect. Unfortunately, the issue is more vague. The innovations biomedical research has created to treat diseases are completely indifferent to the fluctuating and disputed boundary between therapy and enhancement. A product like synthetic human growth hormone (HGH) is in certain cases like insulin for people with diabetes. Synthetic HGH can also be used for children who cannot create HGH naturally. At the same time, HGH can be abused by healthy athletes to build larger-than-normal muscles. The HGH molecule itself does not care whether it is helping a child become normal or making a athlete become much more muscular than he should be. Somewhere between the two, we’ve crossed the border from the friendly, familiar land of therapy to the unmapped, vaguely ominous terrain of enhancement. The mere fact that some drugs enhance performance is not sufficient to decide whether they are good, bad, or otherwise; the context matters. 3
Therapy vs Enahncement Example: LASIK Surgery
Several hall-of-fame worthy professional baseball players have been hauled before congressional hearing and lambasted as cheaters for using performing-enhancing steroid precursors.
At the same time, Tiger Woods has been celebrated as one of the all-time greats even though he has acquired superior vision through laser eye surgery, also known as LASIK (Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis) surgery.
Yet, both performance-enhancing drugs and lasik surgery can easily alter results of sports games. At 20/15 eye sight, running backs such as Tiki Barber can read eyes of linebackers. Tom Lehman, a representative of the U.S. golf team in the Ryder Cup, says lasik surgery improved his ability to "judge distances", and Tiger Woods says he's "able to see slopes in greens a lot clearer' because of his superior vision. Through lasik surgery, golfers can see the grain and small indentations.
Then why is performance-enhancing drugs looked down upon while lasik eye surgery is supported? A common argument is that performance-enhancing drugs are harmful for the body but lasik surgery is therapeutic. There is no doubt that reckless abuse of performance enhancing drugs by amateur athletes will have deleterious effects on the body. However, professional athletes who compete in world-class events do not take as much of a risk as people think because they have access to the best drugs and medical supervision. Furthermore, researchers are refining compounds to create drugs that will help athletes compete at higher levels without bad side effects.
In reality, both performance-enhancing drugs and lasik surgery are being used by professional athletes with the sole purpose of enhancing their performance on the filed with no therapeutic reasons. Neither performance-enhancing drugs and lasik surgery are requirements. Yet, one form of enhancement is shunned upon while the other one is thought to be innovative because of the varying social perceptions of the two methods. 4
At the same time, Tiger Woods has been celebrated as one of the all-time greats even though he has acquired superior vision through laser eye surgery, also known as LASIK (Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis) surgery.
Yet, both performance-enhancing drugs and lasik surgery can easily alter results of sports games. At 20/15 eye sight, running backs such as Tiki Barber can read eyes of linebackers. Tom Lehman, a representative of the U.S. golf team in the Ryder Cup, says lasik surgery improved his ability to "judge distances", and Tiger Woods says he's "able to see slopes in greens a lot clearer' because of his superior vision. Through lasik surgery, golfers can see the grain and small indentations.
Then why is performance-enhancing drugs looked down upon while lasik eye surgery is supported? A common argument is that performance-enhancing drugs are harmful for the body but lasik surgery is therapeutic. There is no doubt that reckless abuse of performance enhancing drugs by amateur athletes will have deleterious effects on the body. However, professional athletes who compete in world-class events do not take as much of a risk as people think because they have access to the best drugs and medical supervision. Furthermore, researchers are refining compounds to create drugs that will help athletes compete at higher levels without bad side effects.
In reality, both performance-enhancing drugs and lasik surgery are being used by professional athletes with the sole purpose of enhancing their performance on the filed with no therapeutic reasons. Neither performance-enhancing drugs and lasik surgery are requirements. Yet, one form of enhancement is shunned upon while the other one is thought to be innovative because of the varying social perceptions of the two methods. 4
