Reproduction-Lilith's+Brood

Natural reproduction is a theme in the novel "Lilith's Brood" by Octavia Butler, and can be a controversial topic in today's society. On this page you will be able to explore the many viewpoints answering the question, "What is natural reproduction?"

Below is a PowerPoint presentation I have created with visual and textual representation of what the word "natural" means in context of the novel. media type="custom" key="18224766" The topic of reproduction, and more specifically “natural” reproduction has been debated for centuries, with no defined answer to result from it. When talking about humans there are clear boundaries such as genetically manipulating genes; however, even that can be argued against as whether it is natural or not. Natural reproduction is a major theme in the novel //Lilith’s Brood// by Octavia Butler. Throughout the novel, the author challenges the reader to ask themselves questions like what does the word ‘natural’ really mean? Or, just because something is natural for someone else but not necessarily for me does that make it wrong on his or her part? From a combination of research and previous experiences, reproduction is only natural if humans or other species haven’t tampered with it. 

Diane MacEachern, the founder and CEO of Big Green Purse agrees that what is natural is “existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind.” This definition is the basis for the topic of natural reproduction because how humans reproduce and how other species or animals reproduce may be natural in their own ways. In //Lilith’s Brood,// the Oankali species have the goal of mixing desirable human genes with their own to create a better species (to read more about splicing, click here http://eng372nature.wikispaces.com/KShutt712.) Most humans are opposed to the idea of tampering with genes to create a human rather than letting a person be created purely by a mother and a father conceiving and letting the baby grow without any interference from the outside world. Larry A. Witham states in //Where Darwin Meets the Bible: Creationists and evolutionists in America//, “People can’t choose what they believe the human body to be. It is what it is, and the natural way of reproduction should be the same idea, it shouldn’t be tampered with,” and many pro-natural humans will agree with that statement because religious people are not the only ones concerned with protecting “God’s creation” or however environmentalists see it; however, the way that the Oankali in the novel want to reproduce, which is repulsive to humans, is natural to them, “We trade the essence of ourselves. Our genetic material for yours… We do what you would call genetic engineering… We do it naturally. We //must// do it. It renews us, enables us to survive as an evolving species instead of specializing ourselves into extinction or stagnation” (Butler 41). This could cause people to ask the question, “If it is natural to the Oankali, does that make it wrong?” The main issue with this question is that it is natural for the Oankali, but not for humans. For a human to naturally reproduce, one male and one female need to conceive a child, the mother has to carry the growing embryo in her uterus, and the baby has to be born without scientists changing it’s genetic composition in any way, and for another species to mix their genes with a human’s, it would be the same thing as manipulating the genes in a lab. It is just not natural for humans. It may be natural for another species to conceive in the way described above, but for a human it would make it an unnatural birth for them because the genes of the baby are tampered with, and that goes against the definition of the word natural. If an Oankali were to argue this same point, though, they would disagree because their way of reproduction is completely natural, and whether or not it is unnatural to the other species is irrelevant to them. Humans are the ones with the problem. It is not natural to them because the Oankali are not in their system of ethics when it comes to reproduction because the Oankali are //not// human in any way, and they do not reproduce the same way, which is natural to humans.

Another way that it is possible to define natural is to look at it from a religious standpoint. From the New International Version of the Bible, it reads, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female he created them… God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.” Taking the position from this point of view, when God created the world, everything was created for a reason, and everything worked well the way it was supposed to work. If a person takes science to manipulate what God has created, it is no longer natural because it is not the way God intended for it to be. There may be a balance of how all events are supposed to happen, and by changing the genes of people, the balance is thrown off, and even if a person argues that humans are given the ability to change genes, it goes back to the earlier definition of natural: it must not be made by humankind. It is not known directly from where the Oankali came. If they are from God, and based on the definition of natural, and they are not tampering with their way of reproduction it should be natural, but whether they are or are not created by God does not matter. Oankali may be created to reproduce with other species, but humans are not created in the same way, so for a human to reproduce with another species is unnatural even if it is natural for the Oankali.

The following video shows a man's opinion about natural reproduction, and more specifically gay and lesbian marriage from a religious point of view. He does not agree with the concept because it goes against nature and they would not be able to reproduce "naturally." media type="youtube" key="XcaNqecbtyk" height="315" width="560"

Even if genetically engineering goes against what natural may mean in the Bible, it may only be the only way the humans will be able to survive on Earth when they are returned to it in the novel. Nikanj tells Lilith in the novel, “’Our children will be better than either of us,’ it continued. ‘We will moderate your hierarchal problems and you will lessen our physical limitations.’” Humans have a natural instinct to be hierarchical, and cruel and because of this in the novel, they were able to turn on each other and end up killing almost the entire human race. If genes are mixed with the Oankali, who are peaceful, non-hierarchical beings, it may save the humans from future destruction on Earth. Similarly, the genetically enhanced humans would have a better chance of survival on the planet if they were able to heal faster and are stronger than they once were. The Oankali have the humans best interests in mind, as well as their own, and these human problems would have to be fixed, or they will end up turning on each other again if they are put back on Earth. This may be all good and well for the survival of the human race, but it goes against all the points of what natural actually is. If humans destroy themselves, then that may be what is supposed to happen. If everything happens for a reason, maybe there is a point to the destruction of the human race, far beyond our understanding, and even if the majority died off, there were still a few people in the novel who managed to survive. From these people, a new race could have been formed that is still human, but humans that learned from their mistakes and evolved based on their new conditions of living in the wilderness. The evolution of this new species could be better off than anyone could predict, so genetically enhancing the new babies may not even be necessary to the survival of the race, but since Butler states in the novel that the human race would most definitely not survive, that could be what is supposed to happen to them if everything is supposed to happen for a reason.

Genetically enhancing and engineering may seem like the solution to the characters in the novel, and as there are benefits to it, there are also problems that come as well. The writers of the website //AllAboutPopularIssues.org// call a type of enhancing “gene therapy,” and they write, “ Gene therapy is the medical treatment of a disease by repairing or replacing defective genes or introducing therapeutic genes to fight the disease. Over the past ten years, certain autoimmune diseases and heart disease have been treated with gene therapy.” This research is important in finding cures to diseases that form in the human body, and to prevent them from forming in new babies. Engineering such as this can be beneficial to those who are sick or have the DNA structure for forming new diseases; however, it is not nature working on the species in this case, determining it’s survival or destruction, and if the Oankali are doing the same thing by trying to make the human genes stronger, it is not any different. If that is how the Oankali function, it does not make it unnatural for them, but it is unnatural if the humans reproduce in that way since it is not how they are made to function. Another problem that can occur, as it did in the novel, people that have genes that give them abilities far above another person’s may make them a target. Lilith and Joe were given abilities that no other humans were given and it caused problems with another person: “’He had fought for you. But his injuries healed. Curt saw the flesh healing. He believed Joe wasn’t human’” (Butler 223). In a situation like this, Joe was not someone that Curt perceived as natural because it was not what he was used to, and he feared the unknown and supernatural. It also disturbs the unity the Oankali was trying to create with the new human race, and it ended up the same way that it did without the genetic enhancing: fighting and death. It does not make a positive difference, so it is not necessary to mess with the natural way of human life.

Overall, there are many theories as to what natural reproduction actually is, but in my opinion, natural is what comes from God’s creation and is not tampered with by humans in any way. What is natural for other species and animals does not make a difference of what is natural for humans, and even if the Oankali are God’s creation as well, the human race is not intended to reproduce with them just as they are not intended to reproduce with animals on Earth. Whether or not it is necessary for the survival of humans on Earth does not make a difference because even if it helps to make humans stronger, the natural way of birth and life creates equilibrium on the Earth.

This video explains a breakthrough shown on BBC about cloning humans. Even though animals have been cloned, a human being has never successfully been cloned scientists have evidence of having the ability to do so. Is this the direction in which humans are moving?

media type="youtube" key="Tw1CX6ku0NQ" height="315" width="420"

Works Cited Cameron, Kirk. “ [|Kirk Cameron on homosexuality: "It's detrimental, and ultimately]  [|destructive."] Video. . Cannon, Michael. //World Without Design: the Ontological Consequences of Naturalism//. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Print. “Cloning the First Human.” BBC News. [] Correia, Clara. //Embryology Reproduction//. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. eBook.

//The Holy Bible, New International Version//. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1973. Print. Kornblith, Hikary. //Knowledge and its Place in Nature//. Oxford: Oxford University Press , Print. Scheper, T. //New Trends and Developments in Biochemical Engineering//. Berlin: Heidelberg, Print. Shapiro, James. "Natural Genetic Engineering and Natural Selection: Perplexing Delusions of Certain Neo-Darwinist Advocates." (2010): n. page. Web. 15 May. 2012. . Van Dijk, Peter. //Natural Sciences Freshwater Biology//. Belgium: Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, 2009. Print. Witham, Larry. //Where Darwin Meets the Bible : Creationists and Evolutionists in// // America //. Cary, NC: Oxford University Press, 2002. 339. Print.