An MIT spinoff called MicroCHIPS has announced plans to market an implantable contraceptive chip that can be turned on and off remotely, and lasts for as long as sixteen years.
Funded by the (Bill) Gates Foundation to the tune of $5 million, the chip contains enough of the contraceptive drug levonorgestrel to provide contraception for the major part of a woman’s fertile years.
Once implanted, the device will automatically melt a seal to release a few micrograms of the drug every month until it receives a wireless command to stop, or to start again if desired.
When developers were questioned about hacking concerns, they said the device will incorporate such precautions as individual password-protected remote controls and the need for an external transmitter to be held within a few inches of the device, which will be implanted in a region of fatty tissue.
MicroCHIPS hopes to market the device in some regions of the world starting in 2018.
This announcement raises two distinct ethical issues.
One is the question of security relating to any kind of medical chip implanted in the human body.
One of the news reports on the contraceptive device noted that former US Vice President Dick Cheney asked his doctors to disable his heart pacemaker’s wireless interface out of concerns that someone might hack into it and zap him into eternity.
Such fears are not without foundation.
For example, password protection is notably weak in many cases, and short-range low-power RF links can be manipulated from greater distances by (illegal) high-power transmitters.
It is a sign of a narrow mindset to consider only technical means of hacking.
In the developing-world environments where the Gates Foundation intends the contraceptive chip to be used, there is often a strong animus against any method of birth control on the part of husbands and boyfriends.
Why should a man bother with sophisticated technical hacking when he can threaten to beat the stuffing out of the woman if she doesn’t tell him her password? No one has figured out a foolproof way to prevent that kind of hack.
The second ethical issue, and the one that will probably get me into hot water shortly, is the question of contraception in general.
Contraception is an existential question for the human race as a whole, and thus goes to the very heart of what you think humanity is about. Continue reading
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