A Plan for Human Thriving

Evan Smith

Editor’s note: In the spirit of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” Smith offers an sequenced argument that in claim after claim pushes toward the both absurdity to underscore how easily the category of the human can be erased.

All the unused frozen embryos from IVF are a wasted resource.

Bodies are one of the great strengths of a nation, not in any sort of patriotic-like crap, but

in blood and sweat value. Militaries and economies need workers. Machines can only do so

much, at a certain point, a nation needs bodies who can act in roles nobody else wants to.

Historically, immigrants, slaves, and other sorts of second-class peoples have taken these roles.

There is no need for such cruelty anymore.

Artificial wombs can allow for the growth and development of an embryo into a fetus

that can be removed and survive into adulthood, all without the need for a woman’s body. There

are hundreds of thousands of frozen, fertilized embryos that nobody will ever claim. What an

absolute waste of valuable potential. This potential could be manifested into great power for a

nation. These embryos serve no use in storage. Where can they serve a use? As soldiers and

servants. They ought to take on the jobs that nobody else wants to.

The following is a plan for how this potential to serve could be realized.

The embryos will be incubated in a government facility. After nine to ten months of

incubation, they will be removed from the artificial wombs. The first generation of these adult

embryos, better shortened to adryos, will be raised to number of about five hundred. The first

generation of adryos will be raised by 200 paid workers, not a significant number to pay, less

than that of a small-sized town government. After the complete growth of the first set, these

adryos will then be the ones to raise the next generations. Each generation will have 100 adryos

taken for the purpose of joining the supervisors, those who raise the adryos. Growth hormones

will be used to speed up the process of maturing in the adryos.

They will be bred to work. They will be bred to fight. They will be used.

The best part? Nobody needs to sacrifice. Women won’t need to sacrifice their wombs.

Men won’t need to sacrifice their lives in war. Nobody will have to sacrifice their time.

Eventually, nations will not need their citizens to perform degrading work.

For any who would say this is unethical, why? These embryos would decay away into

nothing without this development. They would have been wasted goods, something nobody

likes. They do not require leeching on a woman’s body for nine months. The cost to raise them

would be significantly less than that of welfare or foreign aid. It would allow the lower class to

never feel the need to perform disgusting labor. Soldiers would never need to sacrifice their lives.

Besides, because these adryos did not develop in the womb, they are not even human

really. They are innately different. Whereas humans develop in reliance on other humans, these

adryos develop in reliance on machines.

Humans can create humans; humans can create machines; machines can create

machines; machines cannot create humans.

Therefore, whatever the adryos are, they are not human. As such, they do not deserve the

same treatment as humans. It is right that these adryos be subjected to treatment of a life that is

less than human. This means it is okay to use them for free labor and cheap death. We use

animals in the same way. Animals do not get paid to produce dairy, nor do they have a choice in

their slaughtering. They provide a value, and in exchange, people keep them alive, until they

decide otherwise. This is the natural order of the world. Humans help humans; humans use all

else.

This plan could take something that would have been unwanted, useless, and discarded,

and it could turn it into something helpful and convenient, the ultimate measures of value. The

best part? These adryos could then breed and create more adryos. Because the adryos are not

human, their offspring would also not be human. Because, as has been established, only humans

can create humans. These following generations would allow for the immense growth of this

project. Humanity will have as many servants as it wants, possibly tens of millions, and none of

it would require any humans to sacrifice anything.

Evan Smith is a sophomore Politics major. He is a practicing Catholic who enjoys theology and philosophy. Evan has lived in New Hampshire all his life, in the same house, and does not enjoy travel. Evan’s favorite food is fried chicken, and he eats it at least once a week, typically more. He has a moderate liking of public speaking and an intense liking of United States Presidential history; he is able to name all of the presidents in both chronological and reverse-chronological order; his favorite is Calvin Coolidge, and he has visited the Coolidge museum multiple times.