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32 Sw. U. L. Rev. 501 (2003)
Human or Animal: A Resolution to the Biotechnological Blurring of the Lines

handle is hein.journals/swulr32 and id is 511 raw text is: HUMAN OR ANIMAL: A RESOLUTION TO THE BIOTECHNOLOGICAL BLURRING OF THE LINES I. INTRODUCTION What constitutes a human being? The answer to this question may not be as simple as it seems. In fact, there is no correct answer. There are too many variables involved to provide a universal definition. For instance, what one considers human may depend on that individual's personal, religious and intellectual beliefs, as well as his or her life experiences. Therefore, what one person considers human, another may not. Philosophers and academic thinkers have struggled with this very question for centuries. For example, Renee Descartes evidenced his difficulty in clearly defining what constitutes a human being in his work entitled, Meditations on First Philosophy, in which he asked the question, what is man?' Because the question may never be universally answered, the debate over its resolution continues in perpetuity. However, this debate is now taking place in new forums. Expanding beyond the field of philosophy, the quest for a definition of human being has improperly entered the fields of science, politics, and law. Emerging biotechnological inventions have thrust the issue before the Patent and Trademark Office, Congress, and the federal courts. A dramatic sequence of events has seemingly necessitated the impossible, universal definition of a human being. First, in 1980, the United States Supreme Court condoned the patenting of living organisms.2 The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences subsequently extended that doctrine to allow the patenting of multi- cellular organisms.' Currently, however, the desire to patent living 1. RENE DESCARTES, MEDITATIONS ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY (Laurence J. Lafleur trans., The Bobbs-Merill Co., Inc. 1960). 2. Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303, 309-10 (1980). 3. Exparte Allen, 2 U.S.P.Q.2d (BNA) 1425 (B.P.A.I. 1987).

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