Appendix G. 
259 
we are embodied creatures and for that reason our identity is tied to 
the body and the body’s history. 
Leon Kass has made a similar point recently in reflecting on the 
prospect that regenerative medicine might significantly lengthen the 
human life span (Kass, 2003). He, too, invokes the notion of a natural 
trajectory, one that stem cell research may undermine. Although it is 
possible to approach the prospect of extending the human life-span 
in an abstract way, he says, to think of what such a change would 
mean experientially is to recognize that “the ‘lived time' of our 
natural lives has a trajectory and a shape, its meaning derived in part 
from the fact that we live as links in the chain of generations" (13). 
Indeed, says Kass, without something like the natural trajectory of 
bodily life that currently exists, the relationship between the 
generations would be decidedly different, and probably not better. 
“A world of longevity,” writes Kass, "is increasingly a world hostile 
to children" (13). Walter Glannon has argued that, at the very least, 
increased longevity would increase competition for scarce resources 
between older and younger generations. According to Glannon, “it 
is at least intuitively plausible that an over populated world with 
substantially extended human lives and scarce resources could 
adversely affect the survival and reproductive prospects of the young 
and harm them by thwarting their interest in being healthy enough 
so that they could survive and procreate" (Glannon, "Extending," 
347)." 
Francis Fukuyama has also suggested some of the reasons why 
increased longevity may imperil children, but he also notes that our 
relationship to death may change as well (See 2002, ch. 4). “Death," 
he says, “may come to be seen not as a natural and inevitable aspect 
of life, but a preventable evil like polio or measles. If so, then 
accepting death will appear to be a foolish choice, not something to 
be faced with dignity or nobility" (Fukuyama, 2002, 71). 
Sometimes the question of the transformative possibilities that 
come with stem cell research is raised even more starkly when the 
question asked is not how may stem cell work affect what it means 
to be human, but instead: Does stem cell research open the door to a 
post human future? This is a point Waldby and Squier raise exphcitly 
when they discuss the combination of genetic engineering and stem 
cell therapy. They suggest, for example, that xenotransplantation 
forces us to confront the prospect of transgressing species 
boundaries.'^ The conclusion of their paper is worth quoting in full: 
PRE -PUBLICATION VERSION 
