Six months ago, when Lars Andersen got into his truck to embark upon the last leg of his journey back home to Denmark from Hungary, he had no idea that this trip would make him the center of a protracted and loud moral discussion - not only in Denmark, but throughout the European community.
At 3:40am, just after Hamburg, another truck suddenly changed lanes right in front of him, and Lars Andersen crashed into its trailer. Both trucks got out of control and wound up totally damaged at the side of the highway.
Police investigations following immediately after the accident surprisingly revealed that Lars Andersen had taken no drugs whatsoever - and that would eventually become the subject of the controversy.
His insurance company refused to pay damages arguing that it was completely irresponsible on the part of Lars Andersen to drive long distances without taking any kind of stimulant or something that would sharpen his concentration.
In the lawsuit that followed, the court decided in favor of the insurance company. During the trial, the prosecutor had emphasized that in today's society the general public has a right to be certain that people holding jobs with special responsibilities are medically attuned to performing at their very best - a principle that has long since been established for doctors, nurses and pilots, just to mention a few. The judge stated in his grounds for the judgment that the benefits of medical optimization were obvious and that the use of such medication by truck drivers had in fact become a professional standard. Hence, by not following the standard, Lars Andersen had acted irresponsibly.
As a matter of principle, the case was immediately appealed. Since the decision may potentially impact the interpretation of laws across the EU, the case has attracted considerable attention from interest organizations, citizens' groups and political debaters throughout Europe.
It is an old and fundamental issue that has been pushed to the extreme. At its core, it is a matter of who we want to be as human beings.
Do We Have The Right To Be Unhappy?
Medical optimization - or Med-Op for short - comprises a wide array of treatments that have changed the health and performance of most people dramatically.
Roughly speaking, today nobody needs suffer from obesity, baldness, impotence, acne or other flaws that used to cause considerable concern with a lot of people. Children flipping through the family's photo album looking at the paper photos can have a good laugh studying the bald heads of their grand fathers and all the other men with very little hair left.
The changes are not only on the outside, however. Med-Op increasingly includes temperamental, mood-, endurance- and thought-related adjustments. The composition of medical optimizers differs significantly from one person to the other - partly because our genes and health conditions differ, partly because we want to enhance different elements of our personality. Last but not least, price is an important issue as well - as we shall return to.
"We no longer live in the stone ages", says Flemming Macht, professor at the Danish National Hospital's neuro-cosmetics department, "We are making great progress in our understanding of the human body and mentality, and our ability to improve our general well-being and performance at almost all levels is developing rapidly. Why not use that knowledge to make us happier, wiser, richer and healthier - just like we use all other kinds of technologies to improve our prospects?"
Opinion polls reveal that even if consumer responses to medication have become considerably more favorable during the past 5-6 years, a large part of the general public is still utterly against. Those opposing medical optimization have united through the international grass-roots movement "The Savages". Its members believe that the original human nature should be preserved - both because they feel that this is the life that suits us the best, and because they fear the negative consequences of changing the very nature of humanity. The name, "The Savages", refers to an almost 100 hundred year-old book, Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World", which describes a society where sadness and flaws were kept abreast by means of a miraculous remedy called "soma". In the book, "the savage" refuses to take soma - much to the astonishment of Dr. Mustapha Mond, the representative of the authorities, who unsympathetically declares: "In fact, you're claiming the right to be unhappy." To which the Savage defiantly replies: "All right, then, I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."
And that is the very claim: the right to NOT take medication that the lawsuit against Lars Andersen will put on trial.