Replies

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think you touched on some of the dangers. While you might consider this particular test benign, I'd only point out that in India, for example, abortion is being applied almost wholly against female unborn and IVF could be used in the manner to select only male children. If we learn more about the relationship between genetics and human behavior and physiques, it will be difficult to stay off of the slippery slope to designer babies and the elimination of "unwanted" traits. Despite my distaste for the homosexual agenda, for example, I'd find it chilling if parents tried to either eliminate or purposely create homosexual children based on a real or imagined homosexual gene.

I also think your point about generating defective children is important. I'm personally baffled by the idea that it is OK to slice, dice, and mutilate an embryo if its going to be killed but not if it is going to be left to grow. The idea that letting something live is a problem seems somewhat perverse to me.

Likewise, thanks for your thoughts and comments on this thread. I'm sorry to have been away for a couple of days, so I'll leave with just a few thoughts. Like you, I am extremely uncomfortable with the "designer baby" concept, and my discomfort is on many levels. I'll mention two more that go beyond what we had previously discussed.

While I no longer practice an active faith of any kind, I am greatly bothered by those who I perceive to be pursuing what I call a "technological messiah." By this term, I mean any technical advance that people believe will make life suddenly wonderful. For instance, an inexhaustable, inexpensive energy source would seemingly solve so many problems and make life much better in many ways. I'd welcome that advance, but I think its power to make us truly happy is vastly overrated. I fear that some people will believe that they can make human life much better by having only "genetically improved" babies. While I would welcome a cure for many birth defects, I don't believe that eugenics in a lab coat today will produce any more good than it did when practiced by racists in the 20's and 30's.

A second level of discomfort is that some parents might see "genetically improved" children as a way to compensate for negligence in raising children. Regardless of how "genetically perfect" a kid might be, bad parenting is still a way to make monsters.

Again, thanks for some interesting thoughts.

WFTR
Bill