Ode to the enhanced

When Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record in 1974, it was a thrilling civil rights victory. Despite some death threats, the vast majority of Americans proudly affirmed the right of one black man to hit slightly more home runs than one white man who had died three decades earlier. No one even questions that anymore.

Now Barry Bonds, who could surpass Aaron’s record next week at Dodger Stadium, is about to strike an equally important victory for the oppressed of our era: the performance-enhanced. When Bonds uses his redwood-trunk legs to trot around for No. 756, I hope he’s joined on his way around third by the Botoxed, the Prozaced, the Viagraed, the Propeciaed, the Lasiked and the breast-augmented. For it is a victory for all of them. Also, because I think it would make great TV. Even without the Botoxed, the Viagraed, the Prozaced, the Propeciaed and the Lasiked.

The media’s objection to Bonds’ alleged steroid use -- as with the Tour de France’s objection to all of its riders (there’s a fair chance that on Sunday, I will be given the yellow jersey) -- is that they’re cheaters. That they’re using medical technology to exceed human limitations.

Get used to the 21st century. In 1999, people slunk away for a “weekend in Palm Springs” while their noses shrank or their cheek skin became earlobes. Back then, your aunt, whose youngest child had left for college, was “just in a super good mood today.” Before 2000, otherwise normal-looking people’s teeth were slightly off-white.

But now women proudly declare that their lips are plumped, their derm micro-abrased, their serotonin selectively inhibited on the re-uptake. Sure, maybe other women hate them for drawing stares at bars with their fake breasts, or gliding anxiety-free through the first year of a relationship without freaking out on a guy about “where we’re going with this.” Politicians hate their Botoxed opponents, college kids hate students who crank out papers on Adderall, and I hate Rosa Brooks for whatever smart pills she’s on. It’s another class rift between the haves and the have-nots, the Lasiked and the bespectacled, the Cialised and those who just kiss their partners good night.

The social battle of our time is about the fairness of medical technology. For women, it’s about plastic surgery, and for men, it’s about sports. Once again, it’s so much easier to be a man. Imagine if women could simply spend weekends staring at a TV and screaming, “Look hotter! Get in there and raise your damn cheekbones, you bum!”

The problem is that we have broken a basic human covenant: that we each suffer whatever genetics we were given. The assumption was that the playing field is fair in the big picture, that some of us are born hot and smart and talented and it somehow gets balanced out by being Michael Lohan’s daughter.

But it’s not fair. And it should be OK to use technology to compete. Should all the laurels go to those born button-nosed, lactose tolerant with perfectly balanced attention? Shouldn’t a man who can only hit a home run once every 16 at-bats -- and whose father is Bobby Bonds and godfather is Willie Mays -- be allowed to hit a home run every nine at bats? Isn’t that what Jefferson meant when he wrote that whole “pursuit of happiness” thing? Or do you really think the dude was just talking about stamps and tea?

In a more enlightened age, when the risks and the costs of these medical miracles come down, we’ll look back on Bonds’ triumph as a victory for all of us. We’ll see our booing of him as symptoms of a silly, Luddite phobia of manipulating our own bodies. I’m sure there was an equal outcry when makeup was invented. And hair dye and the Wonder bra. How our ancestors went on, I have no idea.

Bonds is not using a corked bat, which many players have, just as plenty of pitchers have scuffed balls. He has simply redesigned his body. Like so many of us have. Medicine, surgery and genetic engineering are no more an affront to God than drinking the protein shakes he didn’t leave on the vine. And until we accept that, we’re going to keep losing to those we call cheaters.

So next week, I’ll be watching Bonds with my Lasiked eyes, free of the scar that was laser-pulsed from my nose, while I run a hand through my Rogained hair. And of course I’ll be holding -- because it makes me feel better -- a beer.

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jstein@latimescolumnists.com