Gaspard Koenig: Do we really own our bodies?

I'd like to start by showing you someone who is dressed even worse than I am. [Who is this?] You may notice, aside from the color harmony, a tattoo saying: "My body belongs to me." But who is this person? Is it a punk, who borrowed clothes from their grandmother's wardrobe? Is it a teenager, from the 16th arrondissement of Paris, who feels like rebelling? No. This is our Minister of Health, Marisol Touraine, standing on the steps of the Élysée. And this was last year, to celebrate the 40th year of the Veil Abortion Act, which enables women to take control of their bodies, through a voluntary interruption of their pregnancy. "My body belongs to me" has become banal -- everyone says it. By the way, for once, the entire National Assembly has voted in favor of a symbolic law in order to reapprove the Veil Law. It's a banality, even ministers have it tattooed on their arm. However, it's not entirely true. I would like to give you a few examples, that are a little extreme, honestly even shocking, which will demonstrate that for many people and in a lot of cases, well, my body doesn't belong to me. Firstly, it doesn't belong to me as long as I'm alive. I am not allowed to rent my belly. I am not allowed in many countries to sell my sexuality. I am not allowed to define the gender that I belong to, since I have to face a doctor or be in front of a judge, and declare to the civil registrar whether I am a man, woman, or other. I am also not allowed to do whatever I want with my body. For instance, I can't do this. [Dwarf-tossing] So, You might recognize Leonardo Di Caprio, in this great dwarf-tossing scene. But some versions of it exist that are a little less chic, notably the one that was practiced by the great community of Morsang-sur-Orge from l'Essonne, in the beginning of the 90s. The mayor of Morsang-sur-Orge said: "This can't go on -- we can't toss dwarfs."” And so he prohibited dwarf-tossing. And who was to protest? Dwarf-tossers found other activities to do on Sundays. They probably went back to fishing. It's the dwarves themselves who protested, because they had a breadwinner, and a certain renown, apparently a certain success with women. And the Morsang-sur-Orges Council of State's decision, which jurists know well, said: "No, this is forbidden." I also cannot do whatever I want with my body in order to die. I am not allowed to be euthanized, but I am also not allowed to be eaten. In 2001, a charming German engineer posted an announcement saying: "I am looking for a volunteer to eat." He received several candidates, made a selection, conducted a few final interviews, and in the end finally found Bernt, who agreed wholeheartedly. So they began by cutting off Bernt's genital and eating it together, probably by candlelight. (Laughter) Obviously satisfied by this first course, they chose to proceed -- and by the way this all on video so you can watch it. I recommend it to you, it's really nice -- "Armine ate Bernt." But be aware that this is prohibited. It's crazy, considering they haven't hurt anyone. But it is indeed prohibited to be eaten. Well, even after my death I can't do whatever I want with my body. For instance, I am not allowed to practice sea-immersion whereas diving is allowed while I am alive. I am also not allowed to be embalmed, unless my name is Lenin, Mao, or Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. (Laughter) (Applause) And I am also not allowed -- and this is even worse -- to be cryogenized. You know, some people -- have themselves frozen, hoping that in 10 years, 100 years, or a million years, we would defrost them, as by then we will have already found ways to resuscitate them, or found cures to the illnesses that have killed them. This has been somewhat a success. In Russia and the United States, there are some cryogenic sites, where one can see the coffins. Some put their entire body, while others only their head -- it's cheaper. (laughter) And in France, a doctor named Martineau, felt that it was a great idea to freeze his wife first. (Laughter) And as it seemed to be going well, he decided to follow her with the freezing. Forever united in a frozen sleep, inside a castle. And then someone found out and filed a complaint: There are some people frozen in the village, do you realize that?” (Laughter) Their son was delighted. He would go to see them from time to time. It's better than gathering around a grave. And the Council of State, that same one, said: "This can't be happening. You need to defrost and burn them! Put it all on fire. Then there was a trial, and Martineau's son was forced to burn his parents. Can you imagine, this poor couple who imagined being united for millions of years and resuscitate in a future where sexuality is completely open, completely vivified and rejuvenated. Well, unfortunately, there is only a heap of ashes left. (Laughter) So behind these tragedies -- they don't concern us all if we don't wish to be eaten, frozen, or tossed -- who cares. But the problem is that it actually applies to each one of us. It's the Civil Code via the bioethics law of 1994 that says so. The conventions -- as you can read -- are that there is no private ownership or patrimoniality over the body, because we say that the person is unavailable under law. And so the body itself isn't patrimonial. You don't have an ownership of your body. And so you might tell me: "So what, everything in France is forbidden anyway." (Laughter) But even in the US, a country supposedly liberal, it's the same story. It has, by the way, been declared very clearly at a trial in the Supreme Court of California. The John Moore case. John Moore was a patient suffering from leukemia, in the 80s, and the doctors had to remove his spleen. They discovered that his cells had extraordinary properties for producing certain kind of proteins. So the doctors extracted, without telling John Moore, many of his cells. They extracted blood, sperm, and parts of the spinal cord. They apparently told him that in order to treat his leukemia they had to remove some sperm -- that's apparently what happened. (Laughter) And they made a cell line out of it. John Moore's cell line. Which they then sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars to big pharmaceutical institutions. And John Moore, upon realizing what has happened, said: "Wait a minute, I don't get to have a say? These are my cells, if you don't mind." And so there was a big trial, and the judge concluded that, no, they aren't his cells in fact, given that he doesn't have ownership over his cells. So, where does all of this come from? There are good reasons to think that it came from a monotheistic heritage. This idea -- as Saint Paul put it: "The body is for the Lord and the Lord is for the body." -- is that in the big monotheism, particularly within Judeo-Christian religions, my body doesn't belong to me because it belongs to God. My body is the expression of the soul, as per Thomas d'Aquin. The body is the reflection of my soul, my soul is immortal. It joins the kingdom of heaven. By the way, I can even be resuscitated if the Council of State hasn't burned me first. (Laughter) Pope Pie XII has claimed it very explicitly -- this is the first time I'm quoting Pope Pie XII publicly. In 1954, at a medical congress, he explained that Man is merely a usufructuary of his body, not its full owner. So within our secular law system, a secularized system, it is not a matter of God anymore, well the concept of God has been replaced by the concept of dignity. Going back to that trial in Morsang-sur-Orge, this is the reason why the Council of State has prohibited dwarf-tossing, because a human being's dignity is viewed as being part of the public order. It means that today, this transcendence we have abolished, this divine transcendence, is being retaken by the State, or by society if you prefer, defining everyone's dignity. So dignity is sacredness without God. It's the idea that, nonetheless, the body is sacred. We cannot do whatever we want with it. I suggest that you try and go to the end of the modernity logic. And if we are really, completely within immanence, to whom does the body belong, if not to me? Who can define its dignity, if not me? That's what John Lock did, not John Moore, but John Locke. Indeed, there are many Johns. He was the first person to have written, to my knowledge, that each person has ownership over their own personhood. It's not a coincidence that he is the one who wrote that, He was a doctor, and well-acquainted with flesh, the body's reactions. And also because he was in the midst of the glorious British revolution, the Bill of Rights Revolution. So this whole theory about social contract rights, about elementary, fundamental rights, about civil disobedience, also means that one has natural rights that are predetermined among which, the right of ownership of oneself. He went even further by saying: "If can have ownership over exterior things, if I can acquire the world by working on it, by adding value to it," -- this idea of property was first born out of the appropriation of myself. And think about it, if we have ownership over the body, we have, according to classical themes, the usus, fructus and abusus. Usus means -- it's always nice using Latin terms -- usus means usage. So if I have usus over the body, the dwarfs can do their work with dignity. Then, fructus, we have it fructified and so John Moore can have access to his cell money. And then you have abusus, I can abuse it and do whatever I want with it, and if I want to have it cryogenized, that's my problem. It appears to me that this new generation is a generation that rejects predetermined structures, one that wants to define their own career, that wants to define their life by traveling, and to build themselves, their own self, be their own creator. And we can see, anecdotally, sociologically, to what extent this generation who appropriates their own body with tattoos for instance, It's also a way to define one's sexuality in a much more fluid way. There is a study that came out which showed that generation Z - it's not even Y anymore, it's Z -- Generation Z is post-gender. It's not even bi anymore, everyone defines their own sexuality by adding a little bit of this or that. So this results in many things. For instance, one can be half-sexual, Grey-sexual, gyno-sexual, pan-sexual, Strauss-Kahn sexual -- No, not that. Anyway, there are many versions. I don't know all of them, and can't describe them on stage. But it's interesting, you should look them up. And more importantly, it will allow us to tackle the three big themes of the future: The subject of human augmentation, the enhancement of oneself, the theme of transhumanism, and the theme of data. If tomorrow I can, and I already can enhance myself, that's to say building my own artificial arms, enhancing my limbs, enhancing my brain abilities, even modifying my own DNA. If I modify my own DNA, I must be its owner. If tomorrow I want to test, I want to explore immortality, be it through cryogenisation -- here is that nice example again. Or for instance, as Ray Kurzweil, the Pope of transhumanism, envisions it, by transferring my consciousness onto a USB key. Well, similarly, I am going to define, even contractually, the way in which my body relates to the world. And then there is a third question that might seem a little marginal, the question of data. We produce, a large amount of data, and its value is humongous. as in Europe, it's estimated be worth a thousand billion euros by 2020. However, this data, which is worth so much money and with which some companies make so much money, well, your personal data doesn't belong to you. In the same way there isn't a patrimoniality of the body, there isn't a patrimoniality of data. For the exact same reasons, because data is considered to be an expression of your personality, and as we saw, within the law, the personality is inalienable and the body isn't patrimonial. If tomorrow we find, that we are able to build a private property for data, which will be to the digital age what intellectual property was to the industrial revolution, you will then become an owner, in truly legal and financial terms, of your own data, which you will be able to negotiate. In other words: you will finally get paid for using Facebook. So, "my body belongs to me" isn't a platitude. It's a tattoo we would finally all wear. Because this brand new generation will have to confront all these problems. Transhumanism is coming, bioethical committees are already outdated. And in order for everyone to able to choose their own values, in this complex universe, we must first own our own bodies. Thank you!