When I was in the USA recently, I read in the media that the wife of a well-known financial investor had been murdered. Her husband, incidentally, was being searched for as the main suspect after an adventurous escape to Canada with a speed boat, and apparently subsequently committed suicide. The murderer had made his victim’s body so unrecognisable that she could only be identified by means of the serial number of her breast implants. So implants good after all? This is admittedly macabre.
This reminds me of the novel Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep?, which was filmed as Bladerunner, directed by Ridley Scott, with Harrison Ford and Sean Young. Here on-the-run replicants, that is artificial humans who need to be destroyed, have to be distinguished from real humans. This can be done by examining skin cells bearing markers with serial numbers, which allow the clear identification of a cloned (replicant) human. Of course Harrison Ford, the Bladerunner, whose job it is to find and destroy the replicants, falls in love with replicant Sean Young of all people… You ought to see this film if you haven’t already done so.
oes this mean we will soon all have serial numbers implanted so that we can be clearly identified? As long as cosmetic surgery can do without implants by, for example, making breast augmentations from the body’s own fat, we should avoid using implants, even if this may one day make identification more difficult.
DDr. Heinrich, MD