There's been a lot of up-roar over the new VAMPS act but I think we're looking at this the wrong way. The question I always ask people is 'What if it were you?'
Would you want to be barred from voting and segregated to a separate hospital, often with sub-par equipment? Would you want to be forcibly medicated, spayed, and monitored? The UCSC has routinely passed laws that not only degrade and, yes, dehumanise vampires and were-animals alike but they have often been quoted referring to them as 'an epidemic', 'a plague', or at best 'an inconvenience'.
The UCSC has been repeatedly challenged in legal circles for its questionable practices regarding non-humans. The latest case cost them a $35,000 settlement fee and stacks of bad publicity. Unfortunately, as a government agency, this likely won't hurt them much if at all. They have become such a staple that it's next to impossible to cause them lasting damage as an organisation.
Of the laws passed in the last five years, only three of them have been to the benefit of all involved - The Willing Donor Act, The Registration Act, and (amazingly) The Shift Limit Act.
But this doesn't just affect companies and laws that have done wrong.
The Centre for Human Research and Augmentation has been attacked twice this year - once by a bomber and once by neurotoxin. Trans-humanism is still a difficult thing to talk about in most circles and that's ultimately causing us much more harm than good.
The fear and unrest that sparks these attacks is reflected in our legal system much more clearly than most of us want to admit. Even Dragonia Industries, which is by far the leader in human augmentation, has come under fire from protests and the more conservative media in the past year.
Dragonia's CEO Randall McLayne responded to the tension at length in the the book Rust: The Decay of the Human Machine
In the book, McLayne cites several sources supporting human augmentation as a way of improving the world by improving the people in it, as well as citing the quality of life difference between augmented and non-augmented individuals. While Dragonia still has its detractors, the book has served to quiet the loudest of the groups - the Natural Order Initiative - by presenting a solid, fact-based argument.
All of these things taken together produce a very bleak picture of the world. Are we so afraid and insecure that we refuse to extend the same rights we posses to others? Are we so afraid of equality?
I am not.
