The ruling that recognises the ‘native’ right of two people of the same sex to be considered the legal parents of a child made possible through technology strengthens the legal system. But it also raises the issue of how the relationship between technology, the human being, and society is changing. by Andrea Monti
A ruling by the Italian Constitutional Court has granted two women the right to be recognised as the parents of a child conceived through medically assisted procreation legally available abroad.
This ruling is significant for various reasons—some strictly legal, others of a more general nature that transcend the specific case at hand.
On the one hand, although this is not the subject of this article, the decision fills a legal vacuum or, if you prefer, asserts a political principle. It places the protection of the child at the centre of the legal order’s interest and confirms that parenthood is a right regardless of the minimal social formation in which that right is exercised.
This undeniable consolidation of rights within the legal system has been possible because the law does not necessarily have to follow objective reality (a fact long established if we consider the legal protection afforded to religious beliefs). Therefore, it is technically not ‘outside the system’ to determine that the role of biological parent is no longer exclusively relevant to acquiring legal parental status.
In this regard, it is important to understand—as one can read between the lines of the ruling—that it does not matter whether a birth occurs ‘naturally’ or otherwise. Today, a woman’s involvement is still necessary to bring a child into the world, but the evolution of techniques for extrauterine artificial pregnancies suggests that procreation will not necessarily require human involvement in the future. Therefore, while the identity of the parent remains genetically relevant, it may no longer be so physically or, consequently, legally.
The Global Issue Is Control Over the Body
Undoubtedly issued with the best of intentions, this ruling nonetheless presents systemic criticalities that cannot be overlooked and which do not concern the issue of parenthood, important as that may be.
Firstly, even if generalising might seem excessive, the ruling paves the way for all legal claims based on the transformation of the body into a ‘disposable asset’; that is, the logical and philosophical premise for theorising new relational models no longer based on the concept of society as we have known it until now. Furthermore, it opens the door to biopolitical visions grounded in the right to access technologies that ‘enhance’—or empower—the human being.
In this new model, individuals are technologically determined first, and only afterwards legally. Consequently, society is no longer characterised by the bonds formed between generations, which are the foundation of cultural continuity and the anthropology of a group. In fact, the technical possibility of artificially constructing a human being with legal efficacy—now validated by law—realises the contradiction of a society made up of monads—singular and self-referential entities—that interact like electrons in an atom, without recognising the role of the other, even within direct and individual relationships.
From Virtual Communities to the Capitalism of Solitude, to Individual Loneliness
Like all historical events, this ruling did not fall from the sky, but is the logical consequence of a process of ‘solitudinisation’ initiated and dominated by social networking platforms to convince/compel people to live connected to—and dependent on—technologically mediated interactions.
In reality, such a process predates the advent of social networks, tracing back to the early ‘virtual communities’ of the 1970s and 80s, later fully theorised by Howard Rheingold in his 2000 work *The Virtual Community*.
The separation between ‘body’ and ‘soul’—or perhaps better, between physical identity and informational identity—made possible by the then rudimentary forms of remote communication, laid the groundwork for subsequent legal claims based on the primacy of self-perception over the epigenetic identity of the individual.
It should therefore come as no surprise that the Constitutional Court’s decision has acknowledged this social change, confronting the Italian legal system with the issues of ‘transhumanism’.
Transhumanism, the Super-Being, and Discrimination
Originating around the mid-20th century, transhumanism advocates the transcendence of the human species as we know it, to create a ‘new’ being through enhancement technologies—ranging from genetic engineering and advanced prosthetics to reproductive methods other than biological ones.
Although it aims to improve the human being and avert its extinction, this philosophy—perhaps more accurately termed ‘ideology’—contains within itself the malignant seed of discrimination.
We already have historical proof of how economic and social disparities can create varying degrees of humanity, relegating the less wealthy or less capable—whether individuals, social groups, or even entire nations—to lower tiers.
Therefore, it is not difficult to imagine what might happen if a group of people—’descendants’ of Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man who was rebuilt to be ‘better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster’—began to struggle with the idea of treating as equals those who do not belong to the same ‘superior species’.
It is hard to avoid sounding alarmist when addressing these issues, but at the same time, one cannot place blind faith in the splendid and progressive destinies of progress—especially since evolutions rarely follow linear paths. Thus, it does not necessarily follow that one social phenomenon will lead to another, particularly the one we are describing. On the other hand, a glance at the scientific literature on artificial life reveals that we are not talking about science fiction but about realistically achievable goals.
What Kind of Society Awaits Us?
The social impact of transhumanism—and also of eschatological visions such as Don’t Die, and enhancement-oriented approaches in medicine—is to make possible a society without bonds, entirely individualistic, based on the correspondence between desire and right, in which the concept of ‘the other’ ceases to exist.
Interpersonal bonds are no longer based on shared experiences, even negative ones, or the construction of a common memory, but rather on the self-referential narcissism of ‘I want it, therefore I do it’ and, conversely, ‘I do it because I want it’.
Stopping Is Not an Option…
As disturbing and dystopian as this perspective might seem, it is entirely unrealistic to think it could—or should—be halted. This is the position of Slavoj Žižek who, on the issue of denaturalising birth, says: ‘I have nothing against a company offering to freeze my sperm, my eggs, or whatever. In principle, why not? I don’t share this totally paranoid attitude, according to which this is just another means of control, manipulation, and so on. My God, we are entering a new era, whether we like it or not, in which having children and so on will be completely denaturalised. The problem is not whether or not to do it… The solution is not simply to say don’t do it, prohibit it. If we don’t do it, others will like crazy… That’s why I always stress that the Internet and all these new digital technologies are very ambiguous phenomena, but also the battlefield. New forms of slavery, but at the same time new incredible forms of freedom. We must accept the struggle without nostalgia for supposedly more authentic old communities or things like that. I am not afraid of this new world.’
… Or Is It Not Desirable?
The public debate triggered by this ruling is rather shortsighted. Both sides resort to stale and worn-out arguments (on the one hand, ‘it’s a ruling that doesn’t take rights away but adds them’; on the other, ‘it’s a ruling against nature’) but fail to grasp the structural reality represented by the intrusion of science and technology into the foundations of Western society and the rules by which we should coexist.
The solutions that neither side dares to publicly propose are twofold: the total ‘body commodification’, transforming the body into a ‘disposable object’ over which one may do as one pleases, or the normalisation of the individual, meaning the imposition of state limits on identity control.
The first option—conceptually enabled by the Constitutional Court’s ruling—leads directly to the discrimination of the ‘have nots’, while the second plunges us into the abyss of memory, where dissent and diversity were to be ‘treated’ or, more radically, ‘eradicated’ in the name of ‘superiority’.
Whichever choice is made, the one who will bear the consequences is the human being—whoever or whatever that may be.