Genetically Engineering Babies a Moral Obligation, Says Ethicist 840
Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that Oxford Professor Julian Savulescu, an expert in practical ethics, says that creating so-called designer babies could be considered a 'moral obligation' as it makes them grow up into 'ethically better children' and that we should actively give parents the choice to screen out personality flaws in their children such as potential alcoholism, psychopathy and disposition to violence as it means they will then be less likely to harm themselves and others. 'Surely trying to ensure that your children have the best, or a good enough, opportunity for a great life is responsible parenting?' writes Savulescu, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Ethics. 'So where genetic selection aims to bring out a trait that clearly benefits an individual and society, we should allow parents the choice. To do otherwise is to consign those who come after us to the ball and chain of our squeamishness and irrationality.' Savulescu says that we already routinely screen embryos and fetuses for conditions such as cystic fibrosis and Down's syndrome and couples can test embryos for inherited bowel and breast cancer genes. 'Whether we like it or not, the future of humanity is in our hands now. Rather than fearing genetics, we should embrace it. We can do better than chance.'"
Parents are already "designing" their kids (Score:5, Interesting)
My wife worked for a pediatrician in a well to do area a couple of years ago and if it looked like their kid was going to be under 6 foot, they would ask for a referral to an endocrinologist for hormones to get the kid to grow a bit more. The pediatrician didn't think it was necessary in most cases, but they are his patients so he complied. The parents wanted the best for their kids and wanted to insure that they could get any advantage that they could possibly get for them.
James Watson, co-discover of DNA, was on the National Press Club a few years ago, and this question was asked (can't find the archive right now - heard on NPR). Anyway to paraphrase,
90% of CEOs are over 6 foot. A 5 foot 2 inch tall man and a five foot tall woman may want to better the opportunities for their child.
Of course, what he meant was that up to a point, height matters in all sorts of endeavors and not only sports: politics, finding a mate, work, etc ... There is a strong correlation between height and success. Yes, I know - queue up all the exceptions but keep in mind, many of those were extraordinary people; such as Einstein - 5' 5".
Wrap this up however you want... (Score:5, Interesting)
He's STILL talking eugenics.
Even taking out the racial connotations and stating you're looking at it from a more "humane" angle is STILL going to raise hackles.
Also, genetics has been getting studied for under a century. While YES, we know a LOT about the human genome, there's still a lot we don't know. Such as WHY some of these diseases and behaviors are in our genetic code in the first place. Yet people want to start selecting away from it, or better still, excising it from our genetic code?
They're essentially playing with fire, and the nearest bucket of water is someplace in the vicinity of Alpha Centauri.
Definitely a great idea... (Score:5, Interesting)
This sounds like an incredibly great idea, that I'm sure will have no down sides.
I mean, if we weed out violence, that can only be a good thing. Nice docile people who won't put up any kind of fight. What could go wrong with that?
Also, aren't mental illness and creativity linked?
https://www.google.com/search?q=creativity+mental+illness [google.com]
So if you weed out schizophrenia, for example, to create a superior being.. you could simply be creating non-creative people, who will never invent anything new.
Honestly, we don't understand the human mind and how it works... how can we choose what human attributes are safe to discard?
Not genetic engineering (Score:5, Interesting)
Screening out harmful genes is not genetic engineering. Genetic engineering is splicing, or mutating genes. What he is talking about is just a selection process.
Does anyone really think it's a bad idea to screen out the gene for Huntingtons? There's absolutely no reason any child today has to be born with Huntingtons, an incredibly miserable way to die as a chile. I'd say that screening for Huntingtons is such a serious moral obligation, that failing to do so should be criminal.
If that's OK, it's just a discussion of how much selection we should be doing, not whether we do it. Actual genetic engineering is a whole different story.
Re:Parents are already "designing" their kids (Score:5, Interesting)
My wife worked for a pediatrician in a well to do area a couple of years ago and if it looked like their kid was going to be under 6 foot, they would ask for a referral to an endocrinologist for hormones to get the kid to grow a bit more. The pediatrician didn't think it was necessary in most cases, but they are his patients so he complied. The parents wanted the best for their kids and wanted to insure that they could get any advantage that they could possibly get for them.
James Watson, co-discover of DNA, was on the National Press Club a few years ago, and this question was asked (can't find the archive right now - heard on NPR). Anyway to paraphrase,
90% of CEOs are over 6 foot. A 5 foot 2 inch tall man and a five foot tall woman may want to better the opportunities for their child.
Of course, what he meant was that up to a point, height matters in all sorts of endeavors and not only sports: politics, finding a mate, work, etc ... There is a strong correlation between height and success. Yes, I know - queue up all the exceptions but keep in mind, many of those were extraordinary people; such as Einstein - 5' 5".
Malcolm Gladwell pointed out this exact phenomenon in his book Blink [gladwell.com] , which he calls the Warren Harding effect.
While searching for the presiden't name (I'd forgotten it, but I loved reading the book) I also ran across this: Malcolm Gladwell Explains Why Underdogs Win An 'Astonishing' Amount Of The Time [businessinsider.com]. Ha! Take that You expert in practical ethics!
What the hell is an expert in practical ethics, anyway?
Don't be so naive (Score:5, Interesting)
Every topic about any subject with potential for abuse is about the rich (though not solely so, of course.) The rich are the people in power. Those with power decide how any technology will be used. Everything is a double-edged sword, and the question "How will those who hold the largest double-edged swords use them?" is always entirely valid. Indeed, it must be asked.
I hope this helps you understand why "we turn any slashdot topic into an anti-rich diatribe", which is - of course - a complete mischaracterization of the nature of the discussion.
Re:Ethics (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, but only if we dump them all there as babies. Wouldn't want anyone leeching off a public education, or the knowledge of previous generations.
Re: Maybe (Score:5, Interesting)
So the summary mentions cystic fibrosis. This is a perfect example. If you get 2 copies of the gene, you get a terrible condition and would (without modern treatment) probably die in you 20's. However, a single copy of the gene offers advantages [brynmawr.edu] over not having it at all.
The problem is that humans actually have very little understanding of how the body works and should not meddle in genetics on a large scale. Even in a case where we know a specific condition (2 copies of the CFTR gene) is bad, we should not try to eliminate that gene from the gene pool. I would agree that not producing babies with 2 copies is *probably* a good thing, but people have a tendency to generalize and go too far. Evolution - if left to function - would probably find a way to convey the benefits of this gene without the downside eventually.
There have also been recent drug trials where the substance in question had the opposite effect from what was intended. The immediate effect was correct, but the expected response in the body was wrong. We have a long way to go both scientifically and socially before such things may be considered a good idea.
Re:What would Hemingway looks like (Score:5, Interesting)
Non-suicidal. The fact is we don't know what Hemmingway would have done without alcohol (let alone alcoholism, which is a different question).
It would be egregious however to deny someone treatment for alcoholism on the basis that it will hurt their literary output. We can't simply deny people remedies because their diseases are so "picturesque," We might as well deny antibiotics to lepers, on account of the fact that their disease reminds us of God's wrath.
Eugenecist Plays God Again (Score:5, Interesting)
"We always know best, and what is for the best."
"Our intellect is capable of producing a better world on its own, if given sufficient technology."
"It is immoral not to condition our babies to accept whole-hardheartedly, their statistically inevitable circumstance in life."
Thank Ford, Huxley's vision of a moral paradise is nigh.
Re:Straw man (Score:5, Interesting)
You're talking about something different from the OP.
I would first find fault with the designation of "designer" humans. Are in vitro fertilized embryos "designer"? After all, these are people which shouldn't exist, their parents are empirically incapable of conceiving children, an intervention has occurred (which kills several fertilized embryos in the process) in order to conceive a child, because of the parents' belief that they are incomplete without children -- it is their wish, their sensibility, their purchase, and not their right or their nature. The child is a plan, a consumer product, alas, only available to the relatively wealthy.
Further, places much less well off than rich US medical clinics already offer "designer" humans, in China and India it's common for mothers to simply cull their female zygotes, they abort them. This is plainly an evil thing, it's bad practically and bad morally. But, how do you prevent it? What steps are you willing to go to to prevent the abortion of "undesirable" zygotes? You can ban abortion, but that only bans it for people that can't buy a plane ticket or have access to "discrete" services, and a lot of people believe they have a right to have abortions. The government could examine all expectant mothers and license abortions, forbidding ones that meet their politically-correct standard of "by design." Of course, that designation is up for debate, and something like malaria susceptibility might or might not be defect dependent on local conditions, the "luck" of such a trait given their parents genotype.
And then, we're not just talking about giving people glowing ears or racing stripes, we're also talking about making sure they'll never contract HIV, or the plague, or congenital blindness. What do you tell someone who's born with an abnormality? "Sorry, but our advanced moral consciousness demands that you be born blind, because it would be a violation of human dignity for you not to be"? Why are genotypic changes such a big deal, but phenotypic modifications, like vaccines, not a "violation of human dignity"? Is it a violation of human dignity that I'm immune to measles, because I grew up rich and white in the western world, while a billion Africans are not?
Re:Don't be so naive (Score:2, Interesting)
Nobody is faulting anyone for being rich.
No, that's exactly wrong. The point he made, and which I'm trying to reinforce, is that many posts here are marked by a reflexive, sweeping, venomous animosity that drips with loathing for anybody that runs a business (especially one that employs people, to say nothing of one that is actually successful). There is no topic here that doesn't find its way around some means by which to spout vitriol about anyone that makes one penny more a year than the person doing the bitching. If you don't see this, you're deliberately ignoring it.