Performance Enhancer

               At first, I was confident with the decision that we should ban steroids in sports, but I started to doubt my decision after watching the film “Bigger, Faster, Stronger.”  Anabolic steroids, one of the most widely used performance enhancer in sport, are considered illegal among the sports athletes. However, the debate is still going on that whether we should legalize the performance enhancing drugs. If I imagine watching a Super Bowl game, while knowing that all the players are depending on certain performance enhancer, I would probably not get too excited with their performances. Likewise, we are amazed by sports athletes’ energetic performances that are resulted from their own effort and hard work, and it is true that people get less interested in those players who cheat.

                After watching this video, I questioned myself “If we ban steroids in sports, what about the performance enhancer used by musicians and fighter pilots? Aren’t they also considered as cheating?” The video showed that fighter pilots often take drugs to lower the blood pressure, and musicians take beta-blockers to prevent performance anxiety. However, people do not think these behaviors as cheating, which they might say “in sports, you should play fare and in war you don’t.” Remember Tiger Woods got his eye surgery to have better vision. Isn’t this also considered as performance enhancer?

                I found an article about eyeglasses that can enhance sports performance, which I’m not sure whether it is allowed for professional athletes, but it is truly a performance enhancer used by sports participants to gain advantage during competition. If sports eyeglasses and steroids both enhance the players’ performance, why do people only concern about athletes using steroids? I think it is really hard to give the right answer for these questions, which I guess different explanation can support individual opinion.

Related link: http://www.allaboutvision.com/sportsvision/eyewear.htm

Is Gene Doping Good or Bad?

 

                In our session, we broadly discussed about ethical issues related to athlete’s illegal use of drugs. Although drugs and doping can cause serious side effects to human body, a number of athletes still decide to take those prohibited drugs to enhance their performance. The survey was taken by one of the sports magazines asking track athletes that “If you take this drug, you will be guaranteed to earn gold medal in Olympic Games, but you will die in seven years because of the side effects. Would you take this drug?” Surprisingly, about 80% of those athletes answered that they will still take the drugs, which shows that many athletes decide to use drugs even though they know it will harm their body. 

                We talked about gene doping and morality of choosing the traits of the baby to grow as a perfectly conditioned athlete. Recently in Britain, HFEA, the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, approved the embryo screening which allows parents at risk of transmitting genetic disease to ensure that their children are unaffected by the disease. It is good news that we can use this technology to prevent children born with high possibilities of getting disease. However, what if this can be used in unethical way in sport? If parents can decide the preferred traits of their child to let him become athlete, for example, selecting specific height and strength of specific body, and the child later realizes that he has been planned and forced to become an athlete, what’s the difference between gene doping and  buying a man made robot? In my opinion, gene doping violates both human right and the honesty of athletes that they must embrace in sport activities.  Every athletes need to have equal opportunity to develop and strengthen their athletic skills, which I think enhancing the ability with the help of the modulation of gene expression should be prohibited.

                

Related link:

http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/embryo-screening-and-the-ethics-of-60561