How ‘Gattaca’ Revealed IVF’s Nagging Problem
'90s sci-fi saga gives prescient look at critical 21st-century issue
Art always exists in a difficult balance between authorial intent and audience interpretation.
This has been a highlight of recent online discourses over the issue of “media literacy.” Consider the anti-fascist themes of “Starship Troopers” or “Helldivers II” that can be appreciated by a casual audience that merely finds the material entertaining and doesn’t engage with the satire (or actively rejects those thematic readings).
Art does not always need to be interpreted as it is intended.
The dynamics and themes within a film can take on new meanings over time. Whether you defend auteur theory or “death of the author,” a creator’s ability to communicate ideas to their audience is always in tension with audiences themselves.
At some point, the strongest proponents of authorial intent have to cede that audiences will interact with the art as they see fit and that it can take on new meanings.
And this was something I reflected on this past weekend rewatching “Gattaca” for the first time in a decade. As I enjoyed this classic 1997 work of science fiction, it began to dawn on me that the premise of its film spoke to one of the more difficult issues facing this election cycle—In Vitro Fertilization (IVF).
“Gattaca’s” themes are not hard to discern.
Director Andrew Niccol has built an impressive career writing and directing high-concept, socially conscious science fiction films like “The Truman Show,” “In Time” and “Anon,” in addition to the excellent anti-war drama “Lord of War.”
“Gattaca” specifically tackles the topics of racism and discrimination, showing a dystopian society where genetic engineering prevents disease and breeds near-perfect humans perfectly suited to society’s needs.
Set in the near future, “Gattaca” reveals incredible scientific progress. Rockets explore the solar system, genetic engineering has become prophetic and science allows for miracles. Unfortunately, the world of Gattaca has become hostile to “faith births” or other non-engineered human reproduction.
While the law prevents discrimination, it goes unenforced.
Natural-born humans are forced into unsatisfying labor jobs while their genetically pure brethren become elite athletes and scientists. This is unless “invalids” can buy a “valid” person’s identity and live in their place, which our protagonist Vincent (Ethan Hawke) does to achieve his goal of becoming an astronaut.
The film’s premise is innately anti-eugenic, and its murder mystery trappings highlight the logistical challenges of a world where the undesirable castes are screened out through frequent blood draws and DNA sequencing.
The film’s premise also speaks to the problems of genetic engineering in general. The process of engineering humans from their conception sidelines Christians as second-class citizens. It also devalues human life in its attempt to improve it by eliminating chronic illness and disease.
These medicines only become tools for corporate ladder climbing and profit while the undesirable classes suffer for reasons outside their control.
How far would you go to make your dreams a reality?
Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, and Jude Law star in Gattaca. Now on Netflix. pic.twitter.com/MhprfTmzNL
— Netflix (@netflix) March 31, 2022
In the film’s lengthy prologue, we learn that Vincent was born to a Catholic family on a passionate night between young lovers, as evidenced by a rosary hanging from their car’s mirror. The couple sees the pregnancy out to completion, where doctors genetically screen the baby and learn he will likely only live to 30.2 years due to genetic defects.
This disturbs them enough to seek genetic screening for their second child, with four designer embryos being successfully fertilized for the couple to implant at their leisure. Three of them are discarded and the fourth becomes Vincent’s younger brother Anton (Loren Dean) — who doesn’t have to suffer the indignity of living as a “faith birth” with limited opportunities in the genetic economy.
“Gattaca’s” horror is rooted in a progressive’s desire to combat dehumanization and discrimination, but the biological realities of In-Vitro Fertilization echo those of the processes we see in the film. The callousness of doctors casually throwing away fertilized embryos or reading off death statistics to a newborn’s mother speaks to IVF’s antiseptic and antihuman challenges.
On February 16, the state of Alabama stirred a national debate on IVF when its state supreme court ruled in favor of a family suing a fertility clinic after it accidentally destroyed several embryos because they qualify as human beings under the law.
The decision sent the IVF industry into apoplectic fear. Supporters worried the ruling could result in practitioners being sued, due to the process regularly resulting in embryos being destroyed in the process.
The issue, coming in the aftermath of Roe vs. Wade being struck down by the Supreme Court, became hotly debated. Pro-choice advocates pointed out the strange, seeming contradiction of pro-lifers pushing back against a medical procedure that helps families conceive children despite fertility issues.
However, IVF critics regard the process as an affront to the sanctity of life by commodifying childbirth and discarding healthy fertilized embryos, fueling a conditional attitude towards the value of human life. The two largest religious denominations in the U.S., the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention, have formally condemned the practice.
The Catholic Church released its official stance in its 1987 document Donum Vitae, warning that “the practice of keeping alive human embryos in vivo or in vitro for experimental or commercial purposes is totally opposed to human dignity.”
However, 74 percent of Americans support IVF, which makes it a challenging issue for pro-life activists to rally around. Both the Republican and Democratic Parties have rushed to affirm their approval of IVF as a pro-family policy.
On August 29, President Donald Trump announced that his administration would even make IVF treatments free through government or private means and drawing the ire of his pro-life supporters for attempting to mandate the practice on the taxpayer dime.
IVF is a tricky subject for all of the reasons listed above.
Secular conservatives have been quick to jettison the criticism, with commentators like Richard Hanania pointing out that “They keep using ‘eugenic’ as an anti-health slur. No one on earth who doesn’t already accept your religious views will agree with you.”
Post-Christian America isn’t interested in having this debate, especially when Republicans are otherwise pushing pro-natal policies. The implications of IVF are irrelevant. Many religious people even hold utilitarian but otherwise understandable views, disagreeing with their churches, on the subject because IVF helps them live out the family values they believe in.
Ironically though, this is something “Gattaca” does well by accident. The antiseptic world of the near future shows you the banal horrors of a world where human life is easy to throw away from the outset. The problem doesn’t stay in the womb.
It grows until you’ve got secret police hunting down invalids in the streets. The same doctors who help conceive you become the same people who tell you where you’re allowed to live and work. Your value as a human becomes reducible to the blood in your veins. The fruit of these borderline eugenic policies is an antihuman world of casual discrimination and sterility.
Niccol almost certainly never imagined his film could speak to an issue like this, given his progressive credentials. His films deal with racism, income inequality, existentialism and the horrors of technology and the media.
He’s probably mortified by the current dialog on reproductive issues. That said, his films don’t exist in a vacuum. Unintentionally, “Gattaca’s” fear of dehumanization echoes the same fear that IVF critics do in their activism.
If nothing else, it’s a valuable warning to those who defend IVF otherwise to beware of possible negative outcomes.
Tyler Hummel is a Wisconsin-based freelance critic and journalist, a member of the Music City Film Critics Association and the 2021 College Fix Fellow at Main Street Nashville.
A few thoughts…
1. “Art does not always need to be interpreted as it is intended.” Nevertheless we should make the attempt. If in a 100 years from now the “Guernica” is treated as a pro-fascist work of art commemorating the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War that would be disgusting. Also, see swastika.
2. Catholic Christianity has a way of eliminating the woman/feminine in all things… especially pregnancy and birth. If an embryo or fetus can’t live outside a woman it’s not a viable human being… you can claim otherwise but that is faith and runs into all kinds of issues of freedom of and from faith in this country. Woman/child are one for around nine months… some Christian sects have eliminated the woman’s part entirely.
3. I love the movie “Gattaca” (one of the best ever) and glad you’re putting the spotlight back on it; it’s worthy of praise and discussion and the point is relevant. James Van Pelt wrote a short story titled, “Last of the O Forms” about the last original form human. We spend a lot of time arguing about trans men and women when we really should be having a discussion about what it means to be human. If we could cure autism? The future is going to bring eugenics, gene manipulation, tech adaptation… in 100 years from now a “special olympics” might be for original, not enhanced, humans.
4. Just a side note… it’s how I know so many on the Right are full of it… because if scientists tomorrow found a way to turn sperm OFF and then back on when ready to procreate, if ever, and abortions dropped to ZERO the focus would be on that treatment. It’s why the far right is going after birth control next… it’s always been about the split between the animal (sex always as procreation) and the soul (sex as an act of pleasure and love).
Much of what you wrote is spot on. That said, I would point out that your use of the term “viable human being” as your standard leaves your argument open to attack. “Viable” means “capable of surviving or living successfully” – in this case “outside a woman”. In response to this concept, the anti-Abortionists simply point out that a baby is NOT “viable” either – ie is not “capable of surviving or living successfully outside a woman”. They point out that, whether inside or outside, a fetus or baby cannot survive on its own. In both situations, a fetus or baby will not be “successful” in living – it will not be “viable” – will die without sustenance et al provided by others to sustain and grow it. Then they will declare this ‘proves’ a fetus is the same as a birthed baby and thus has the same rights (meaning you can’t abort the fetus without violating its rights any more than you can murder a child without violating its rights).
A more accurate term would be “independent entity”, which says nothing about the means by which sustenance et al is delivered (nor by whom), but speaks ONLY to the completeness of the body/being itself – ie can its stomach process sustenance or not; can its brain process its autonomic systems or not, etc. If it is not an independent entity, then it is NOT a human being possessing of rights.
Hi, Matt. Thanks for the comment on my story. Coincidentally, I also published a story about enhanced-human olympics called “That He Might Yet Find the Unknown.” It appeared in Altair, an Australian science fiction magazine. In it an non-enhanced Olympian breaks two hours on a road course for the first time. Of course, only dedicated runners recognize the enormity of this since the enhanced runners are fifteen minutes faster.
What a waste of words Brian.
This isnt even implied in the article:
“[A problem of genetic engineering is it] devalues human life in its attempt to improve it by eliminating chronic illness and disease.”
Everything in your screed following it is equally non-sensical. Human Embryos are, in fact human life and the act of destroying them should be considered murder by anyone with a shred of ethics or human decency.
The only thing Christian has wrong in this article(and the reason the whole IVF thing is another left-wing hoax) is that IVF doesn’t have to produce more embryos than are to be implanted. The sop to “efficiency” that causes the IVF practitioners to create a dozen embryos when only 2-4 will be used is the EVIL part of the procedure.
The statement from the churches even points this out:
“the practice of keeping alive human embryos in vivo or in vitro for experimental or commercial purposes is totally opposed to human dignity.”
Its the keeping them alive as embryos instead of implanting them that’s the issue, not the creation and implantation.(which is also what the court said)
Dallas declares a DIRECT QUOTE “isnt even implied in the article”. LOL
“Human Embryos are, in fact, human life”
Human embryos are indeed human life (as opposed to dog life or monkey life). But human embryos are NOT human beings – a deliberate and dishonest EVASION by Dallas of the argument *actually* put forth here.
I recommend the documentary “Human Nature” (available on YouTube) for an intelligent discussion of the social and ethical ramifications of CRSPR technology and genetic engineering in general.
“[A problem of genetic engineering is it] devalues human life in its attempt to improve it by eliminating chronic illness and disease.”
No. Eliminating illness and disease does NOT devalue life, because sickness is NOT the *definition* of life. In the film, what devalued life was the practice of the false philosophy of biological determinism – ie the idea that genetics determines character and ideas. Attacking a science because of an evil philosophy *unrelated* to that science is itself an act of evil.
“The callousness of doctors casually throwing away fertilized embryos…”
Embryos are not yet human beings, just as human beings are not yet cadavers. Treating embryos as human beings is the SAME evil as treating human beings as cadavers. The fact that the former may become the latter doesn’t mean one can PRETEND it IS the latter. That is why treating human embryos as if they were human beings possessed of rights is the SAME evil as treating human beings as if they were human cadavers devoid of rights. The POTENTIAL is NOT the ACTUAL.
Treating something as that which it is NOT is the only “anti-human” HORROR here.
(Of course, this is NOT the argument of the Left. Like the Right, the Left simply makes emotionalist rather than principled pleas in support of its demands; pleas about the individual’s bodily autonomy; pleas it completely rejects [see Covid for example] outside the context of abortion et al. In other words, BOTH sides are just demanding the practice of their WHIMS instead of a rational recognition of the facts of reality about Man.)
The potential to become sentient life grants moral status. Human beings, now alive but who will one day die already have moral status
“The potential to become sentient life grants moral status.”
No. Because the “potential” is NOT the *actual*. Only a human being has rights. That which is NOT a human being has NO rights BECAUSE it is not a human being.
“Human beings, now alive but who will one day die already have moral status.”
Of course, the point is that you want to treat the “potential” as if it were the actual. Thus, by that logic, the fact that a human being is a “potential” corpse means that one can treat it NOW as if it WERE that corpse – ie DEVOID of that “moral status”.
“Embryos are not yet human beings, just as human beings are not yet cadavers.”
What in the non sequitur is this supposed to mean? Mmmm, yes, and the corn growing in the garden is not yet poop because I haven’t eaten it yet, good point.
The entire comment is a good example of the foolishness the author describes though. Shall we intelligently discuss bio-ethics? No? Ok, just capitalize a few words to show how SERIOUS you are. Capped off with an ironic fusillade against emotionalist argumentation.
With logic skills like this, a Gattaca future feels optimistic at this point.
“What in the non sequitur is this supposed to mean?”
I am sorry you FAIL understand the concepts “potential” and “actual”, let alone grasp the difference between them, and the problem of treating *one* as if it were the *other* (aka treating A and non-A as if they were the same). “With logic skills like this” indeed!
Declaring “[e]mbryos are not yet human beings” is not the slam dunk you may think it is. At what point does the developing human (an embryo will develop sufficiently to be delivered and continue living or it won’t, but at no point are the cells anything other than human) gain the rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, in your view? The only answer that does not require an arbitrary distinction, made by the tyrant of choice (doctor, mother, government official), is that the rights accrue at conception.
There is no doubt that it is convenient for people–some who are just power hungry, many who have some vested interest in the decision (because of the moral agency that is inseparable from the pregnancy), and others who don’t want to think too hard about someone else’s problem and be responsible for the decision that is made–to have the ability to deprive a developing human of his or her rights. But it’s morally challenging no matter which arbitrary point you choose:
– If you cling to the notion of “viability” (i.e., a child that is delivered can, with significant support and care, draw breath and continue to live), the timeline to destroy the child within a legally acceptable period continues to decline. And since it’s necessary to set an objective standard, you have to get involved with probabilities of survival (e.g., a child extracted at 20 weeks might have a 10% likelihood of ever leaving the Neonatal ICU, a child extracted at 25 weeks has a 55% likelihood, and a child extracted after 30 weeks has a 95% likelihood) and anyplace you draw the line will be controversial
– If you decide the standard should be an ability to function without need for external intervention (providing food and water, keeping itself clean enough to stave off infection, etc.) you quickly find yourself allowing “abortion” well past the point where the child is able to walk (and how about children with developmental disorders–are we really going to follow the Nazis down that road)?
As you pointed out, there are at least two humans involved in this discussion–the mother and the child (though from a legal standpoint, we expect the father to take responsibility; shouldn’t he also have a say?). That makes the discussion even more complicated.
“at no point are the cells anything other than human”
The fact that they are NOT dog cells or monkey cells isn’t in debate, so it is bizarre that you treat that fact as if it was in debate.
“The only answer that does not require an arbitrary distinction…”
Having developed to the point of being able to survive as an independent entity is not an “arbitrary distinction”.
“Rights accrue at conception.”
Cells, be they human or otherwise, have NO rights. Human BEINGS have rights. Rights are the recognition of the fact that the individual is the owner of his own self (something a brainless clump of cells does not possess), whom other may not come in contact with absent or in contradiction to his CONSENT.
Trying to attribute rights to an embryo is no different an evil than trying to attribute rights to an animal or a tree.
As you pointed out, there are at least two humans involved in this discussion-the mother and the child”
That is the OPPOSITE of what I “pointed out”. I pointed out there is only ONE “human being” – the mother. I EXPLICITLY “pointed out” that the embryo is NOT a “human being” at all, but only has the *potential* to become one. PRETENDING I said BOTH are human beings is dishonesty.
“Treating embryos as human beings is the SAME evil as treating human beings as cadavers.”
Seriously? There is potential in every pre-born human. Equating the pre-born with the dead is what is evil.