BioNews - Commercialisation and the moral obligation to create 'designer' babies
Commercialisation and the moral obligation to create 'designer' babies
08 December 2014
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Appeared in BioNews 783Although the word was not actually used (or at least I did not hear it), this was a polemic making the case for 'eugenics'. That is, the improvement, even 'perfection' perhaps, of humanity by actively intervening in its inherited biology.
In its pursuit, Professor Julian Savulescu, presenting the first session of the Progress Educational Trust's 2014 annual conference, The Commercialisation of Life, made a good case for parents being given more of a choice in the attributes of their children. After all, what's not to like in the idea of preventing inherited genetic diseases? Preventing diseases is what public health is all about, isn't it?
Genetic screening, followed by the discarding of unwanted embryos (perceived as 'flawed') and implanting unflawed ones, denies life to an individual with a genetic disease in favour of an individual who does not have it. Health is better than disease. The life that does result is arguably a better life than the life (or lives) denied. That argument is the pivot on which the moral imperative of the title turns.
Not that it stops there. A life could be made better not only by preventing negative attributes, like diseases, but by enhancing positive ones - a capacity for happiness, perhaps? Are there genes for a pervasive feeling of wellbeing? Some scientists think there are (or might be). Acceptance or rejection of an embryo could be made on the basis of its 'well-being genotype'.
In its pursuit, Professor Julian Savulescu, presenting the first session of the Progress Educational Trust's 2014 annual conference, The Commercialisation of Life, made a good case for parents being given more of a choice in the attributes of their children. After all, what's not to like in the idea of preventing inherited genetic diseases? Preventing diseases is what public health is all about, isn't it?
Genetic screening, followed by the discarding of unwanted embryos (perceived as 'flawed') and implanting unflawed ones, denies life to an individual with a genetic disease in favour of an individual who does not have it. Health is better than disease. The life that does result is arguably a better life than the life (or lives) denied. That argument is the pivot on which the moral imperative of the title turns.
Not that it stops there. A life could be made better not only by preventing negative attributes, like diseases, but by enhancing positive ones - a capacity for happiness, perhaps? Are there genes for a pervasive feeling of wellbeing? Some scientists think there are (or might be). Acceptance or rejection of an embryo could be made on the basis of its 'well-being genotype'.
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