This issue of "designer babies" is a very interesting one.

This clash of two moralities--one, a traditionalist versus another, a
pragmatist, brings us into territory that has previously gone unexplored.
Never before in human history have we had the ability to choose for
ourselves what our children would be like.

It is yet another sign that the human race is growing up. If the birth
control pill is the individual's method of controlling her own body, then
PGD (pre-implantation genetic diagnosis) is the race's means. To
anthropomorphize the human race, to make an individual out of the race as a
whole, seems the best way to gauge our progress, our best means of providing
a moral compass in times when it seems all morality has succumbed to more
pressing concerns like money and status.

But here is the argument:

Can we as humans allow the pre-screening of our babies to cull the herd, so
to speak, of the traits that nature itself would have screened out, if it
were not for our modern beliefs that everyone deserves what is at least on
the surface, an equal opportunity?

Put in that fashion, to me it seems that not only do we have a choice to
pre-screen, but that we also pretty much do NOT have a choice. We MUST as a
species take control of our breeding process, because otherwise, it is a
process without controls. We have already robbed mother nature of her
authority in this matter. We are not going to give it back. Therefore, we
must, as it were, grow up as a species and realize that taking the
privileges of controlling our own breeding process means taking the
corresponding responsibility as well--to ensure that our genetic stock is
made up of stronger stuff. Because the species will not make progress, it
will not grow up if it never survives in the first place.

There are those, a few of those I would consider friends, who would disagree
with me, sometimes because they themselves are handicapped in one way or
another, or many at once.

To them I would present a Nietzscheaen question: Given the choice between
life as you are, and life that those without handicaps experience, taking
into consideration the "grass is greener" bias, would you choose to live
your life again, exactly as you had done? What changes would you make, if
not? Would you change your handicap?

Surely life is trial enough for those of us without such disadvantages.
Must we be masochists as we grope our way through life? Are we so
brainwashed by politically correct culture as to respond with "YES, I CHOOSE
LIFE WITH THESE DISADVANTAGES OVER LIFE AS A 'NORMAL' HUMAN, BECAUSE MY
CHALLENGES MAKE ME UNIQUE!" Please. We are all unique anyway. (Ed. note: This is pretty harshly worded--and I'd like to comment that my harshness is not contempt for the individuals themselves, but the sophistry of political correctness)

On the other hand, it is likely that PGD will be twisted from what it should
be into something that it shouldn't. So to use the argument that reality
is reality, and we must deal with it instead of ideology is flawed; it is
reality that we will pervert this ability. It may not come to Gattica, but
we'll make a good run for it before the end. Furthermore, there's the fact
that, viewed in a certain light, this is just another means of ensuring that
we receive the entitlement which society has programmed us to assume is our
just dessert. Forget the fact that no such assumption exists in society
where money isn't gushing out of our sewers, such as poverty-stricken
Africa, or rural China. We are the Evian drinking, chihuahua carrying,
Gucci-purse-toting elite of the human race. The fact that we are so blessed
isn't a blessing to us anymore, it is a presumption. Well, of COURSE we're
privileged, we're US. DUH! It is only a matter of time before some idiot
breaks the rightly imposed limits on this area of science and starts
pre-selecting embryos for not only being free of undesirable traits, but
also pre-selecting for those traits that myth informs us are desirable. It is only a matter of time before someone calls weakness "an undesirable" failing to recognize (perhaps on purpose) that absence of a positive trait is NOT itself a negative trait)

But then, maybe that is our path. Maybe, as we grow up, we will begin to
assume control of just who and what we are as a species. Maybe it won't be
so bad as all that. Maybe, for instance, our presumption of a certain level
of intelligence bred into us will prevent things like the rampant stupidity
that is so evident in our culture. Maybe we can start breeding into
ourselves some compassion as well as an ability to empathize and understand
the other, and thus prevent war, arguably the worst repeated mistake of
humanity as a whole. Maybe PGD will allow us to start defining, DIRECTLY,
the traits of the human over-entity. And who would choose for us to be
boorish louts, rapists, murderers?

The big problem there is that, once again, idealism needs to be checked by
realism. Consider that the makers in this case are flawed. There WILL be
someone who will choose for us to be excellent murderers. They'll just have
their murder sanctioned for them, as they'll be our stormtrooper--our
genetically reproduced, and reproduceable soldier. And what a wonder!
Because they can be so easily reproduced, who the hell cares if 6 million of
them die in a single conflict! It's just a matter of money at that point. The holocaust will become a non-event because it's no longer relevent.

Once again, it's likely that, despite our eventual ability to DIRECTLY
choose for peace and harmony, we will have to wait for these things to come
about as an eventuality (which they likely never will), as only through
indirect influence--the soldier's increased intelligence will hopefully be
able to overcome their decreased empathy and realize that war is really
quite a stupid thing. Hopefully, in that indirect manner, we will surpass
the flaws of the maker and become what we were supposed to become in the
first place---decent human beings. Maybe we'll even be able to do it in
time to save the fucking planet from ourselves.

---Some additional thoughts:

How do we select for compassion in the first place? My specific development
would not have been possible without Meagan, who took me and helped shape me
into what I hope is a caring and considerate person. That seems as much
nurture as it does nature.

Furthermore, one must consider that the issue will get more complicated.
For instance, cancer-screening. Cancer seems to be almost as much a part of
growing up nowadays as aging itself is. This is probably due to all the
chemicals, both bio-accumulative and not, that are in our environment and in
ourselves at this time. However, there's nothing to say that cancer didn't
exist in much the same degree back before cancer was known as cancer, unless
there's some studies out there to show that cancer rates HAVE risen since it
was first identified. Regardless, cancer is a disease that is not present
at birth, and as such, screening against it is screening against the
possibility of cancer. This seems fine on paper, but consider that
screening out traits, like everything else, cannot be done out of context.

What happens if you want to screen out a potential disease, but to do so
means effectively screening out one's temperament for humour? Or empathy?
Our current society would, without pause, screen out the possibility of
cancer, simply because humour has little bottom line value compared to the
costs of treating a cancer patient. But will we create a new type of
Frankenstein? One that, in a weird flip of the story, looks exactly like us
but doesn't feel like we do? Which is, of course, what the author was
trying to get across in the first place, but who could have known that such
a literal treatment of her book would actually come to pass....

"Saviour Siblings"

It should be okay as long as most children (it would be naive to assume
there won't be exceptions, some privileged few--there are ALWAYS a
privileged few) are required to be donors if necessary. To universalize
this donorship is to effectively counter the argument that to create saviour
siblings is to create second class citizens. As long as their purpose in
life is not specifically to be a saviour (though there will always be
exceptions, but people should be able to work past that, we're really good
at overcoming difficulties in life) then this should be relatively okay.

One last thing: For those of you about to present the "This is unnatural!!!!!!!!1111!!" argument, save yourself the trouble. I don't need your pre-supposed framework of subjective moral judgements which assume the fact that we're just so much better than everything else on the planet, and therefore we're outside of nature. No, everything that happens, whatsoever, is NATURAL. The real question is whether it's how we want to act. To call ourselves God's special children is, to me, an offense against God. God is certainly above favouritism. He created ALL of existence, and He did it for a REASON. No one ever seems to consider that we're going exactly where He WANTS us to. What parent would want to keep their children as a child? The perfect parent would recognize that all children grow up, at the very least, don't you think?

Finally done,

Jon