Build-a-Baby: The Ethics of Scientific Progress

Science is controversial. Look no further than 2010's Nobel Prize in medicine for in-vitro fertilization, a long-controversial technology that is still condemned by the Vatican.

A post at Science Not Fiction raises a great question -- "Does Technology Help Us Be More Ethical?" Or are we growing less ethical as science opens up a world of new possibilities? I found one of the examples they brought up to be particularly intriguing....

Let’s imagine a new example: designer babies. We first hear about a brand new technology and everybody from religious leaders to scientific experts to your grandmother stands up and denounces it—“Yuck!” says Grandma; “Eugenics will bring back Hitler armies!” says the politician who has no grasp of science (a redundant statement, I know); “God doesn’t approve!” says the Vatican; “all people will all be the same!” says the worried science philosopher. “The genetic engineering of people could have lots of things go wrong with it, and it’s just unnatural, so we probably shouldn’t do it,” says the general consensus.

The prospect of "designer babies" is definitely not far off. Certainly it comes with a host of potentially unethical applications -- selecting babies on the basis of height, hair color, or even intelligence, as demonstrated fantastically by the movie Gattaca (often cited as one of the most accurate portrayals of science by Hollywood). But what about the vast array of genetic disorders we couldprevent using "designer-baby" technology? Cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sach's, diabetes, heart disease, sickle-cell anemia, some cancers (including breast and colon), severe alcoholism, Huntington's, some forms of Alzheimer's, obesity, ALS, Turner's -- all these, and hundreds more, are sometimes or always caused by genetic factors, and therefore theoretically preventable.

So, if (not yet, but soon) we have it in our power to safely prevent these diseases, are we morally obligated to? As the SNF post puts it:

In a world where one can easily prevent a litany of genetic diseases and disorders, how would you look back on a society that paid no attention to the genetic health of the child? Would you consider it moral to leave a child’s genetic outlook to chance?