gattsuru
Making the rounds.
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2016
- Messages
- 27
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Fun to see this episode mentioned. It's the furry talking, but it always felt like a missed opportunity: there's a lot of fascinating human enhancement questions that get pushed aside in favor of a glorified steroid PSA.
You've got some room to play around with, since the law of the 2030s Beyondverse may not be the law of today's real world, but the FDA's power to limit administration of a cleared medicine or procedure is much more limited than its ability to regulate production or advertising of such. Individual doctors and pharmacists can (and in the real world do!) give drugs for 'off-label' uses that the FDA has not cleared, and enforcement and regulation usually falls more to state regulatory boards (or police). Some of Cuvier claims during news stories flirted pretty heavily with the sort of thing the FDA's would slap down, but that's not really a claim you could bring against Gotham police.
Similarly, courts have a surprisingly wide power to medicate defendants when necessary; while Sell v US put some limits on forced medication, the criminal splicers almost certainly hit them all. Cuvier, if he survived, obviously wouldn't be able to face a courtroom or be contained as a blob monster, but the gang splicers would have a lot of overlap with schizophrenia in the 'uncontrollable impulse' sense given both what we see here and the later Joker hyena-splicer. With the limits of court-ordered psych evaluation, probably even if the gang members were just predisposed to violence rather than driven to it by the splicing like McGinnis nearly was.
A ban on "being spliced", rather than against new splicing... be complicated. Sell requires a per-defendant analysis by judges, and the courts have a messy relationship with pure status crimes. Might be more plausible given the whole supervillain thing (and maybe Boss Smiley, if he's present and unchecked in that universe?).
That said, the intellectual property question may be hard. In-show, Cuvier insisted that splicing was reversible, and had submitted his drugs for clinical trials. Even if he'd stolen PaulTech, that's just add to Cuvier's crimes in the manufacturing, rather than be given obvious ways to get money or the drugs back from Gotham police (though it could tie it up in courts long enough to talk sense into people).
Even under state emergency powers laws, the US federal takings clause applies: private property can't be used for public use, without due compensation. There's some exceptions you can drive a truck through, though. If the splicing 'recovery' drugs were taken from Cuvier's legal possession (even if they were really PaulTech!), there's a lot of ways this could be treated as part of Cuvier's crimes or proceeds thereof, and similar to how police can take, destroy, or resell a firearm used as part of a criminal act, there's a lot of space relevant here.
You've got some room to play around with, since the law of the 2030s Beyondverse may not be the law of today's real world, but the FDA's power to limit administration of a cleared medicine or procedure is much more limited than its ability to regulate production or advertising of such. Individual doctors and pharmacists can (and in the real world do!) give drugs for 'off-label' uses that the FDA has not cleared, and enforcement and regulation usually falls more to state regulatory boards (or police). Some of Cuvier claims during news stories flirted pretty heavily with the sort of thing the FDA's would slap down, but that's not really a claim you could bring against Gotham police.
Similarly, courts have a surprisingly wide power to medicate defendants when necessary; while Sell v US put some limits on forced medication, the criminal splicers almost certainly hit them all. Cuvier, if he survived, obviously wouldn't be able to face a courtroom or be contained as a blob monster, but the gang splicers would have a lot of overlap with schizophrenia in the 'uncontrollable impulse' sense given both what we see here and the later Joker hyena-splicer. With the limits of court-ordered psych evaluation, probably even if the gang members were just predisposed to violence rather than driven to it by the splicing like McGinnis nearly was.
A ban on "being spliced", rather than against new splicing... be complicated. Sell requires a per-defendant analysis by judges, and the courts have a messy relationship with pure status crimes. Might be more plausible given the whole supervillain thing (and maybe Boss Smiley, if he's present and unchecked in that universe?).
That said, the intellectual property question may be hard. In-show, Cuvier insisted that splicing was reversible, and had submitted his drugs for clinical trials. Even if he'd stolen PaulTech, that's just add to Cuvier's crimes in the manufacturing, rather than be given obvious ways to get money or the drugs back from Gotham police (though it could tie it up in courts long enough to talk sense into people).
Even under state emergency powers laws, the US federal takings clause applies: private property can't be used for public use, without due compensation. There's some exceptions you can drive a truck through, though. If the splicing 'recovery' drugs were taken from Cuvier's legal possession (even if they were really PaulTech!), there's a lot of ways this could be treated as part of Cuvier's crimes or proceeds thereof, and similar to how police can take, destroy, or resell a firearm used as part of a criminal act, there's a lot of space relevant here.
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