Sugar and spice, and all things nice
Well, that’s what they used to be made of.
Today’s ethical dilemma is about designing babies to order. The insidious government of Diktatia is having babies screened to eliminate certain genetic defects and add certain desirable genetic traits, while allowing parents to choose whether their children might have a few kinks. The Vicar of Diktatiaville thinks that God’s job is to pick and choose babies, not the government’s.
My position would be somewhere in between, I suppose. Where the quality of a child’s life might be seriously affected by some unfortunately accident of genetics, then genetic manipulation is for the good of the child. But picking and choosing characteristics should generally otherwise be left to the chance union of egg and sperm (which the vicar would think is the God part; we must permit him to be wrong because unless he chooses to be persuaded, we’d be no better than proselytisers ourselves). There might be a few exceptions where the editing of the genetic code might be permissible without necessarily conveying any advantages. For example, if parents already have a child of one sex, they might want a second to be of the other gender.
Of course, this sort of thing is asking for trouble in countries like India and China where the ridiculous obsession with boys has already resulted in an excess of them. How dim can people be when they fail to consider that without girls, there aren’t going to be boys? And if custom dictates a preference for boys, it’s time for the custom to be changed.
My position would be somewhere in between, I suppose. Where the quality of a child’s life might be seriously affected by some unfortunately accident of genetics, then genetic manipulation is for the good of the child. But picking and choosing characteristics should generally otherwise be left to the chance union of egg and sperm (which the vicar would think is the God part; we must permit him to be wrong because unless he chooses to be persuaded, we’d be no better than proselytisers ourselves). There might be a few exceptions where the editing of the genetic code might be permissible without necessarily conveying any advantages. For example, if parents already have a child of one sex, they might want a second to be of the other gender.
Of course, this sort of thing is asking for trouble in countries like India and China where the ridiculous obsession with boys has already resulted in an excess of them. How dim can people be when they fail to consider that without girls, there aren’t going to be boys? And if custom dictates a preference for boys, it’s time for the custom to be changed.
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