The race to make the perfect baby is creating an ethical mess
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/16/1125159/ethics-embryo-screening-reproduction-baby/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=tr_social&utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement&utm_content=socialbp
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Consider, if you will, the translucent blob in the eye of a microscope: a human blastocyst, the biological specimen that emerges just five days or so after a fateful encounter between egg and sperm. This bundle of cells, about the size of a grain of sand pulled from a powdery white Caribbean beach, contains the coiled potential of a future life: 46 chromosomes, thousands of genes, and roughly six billion base pairs of DNA—an instruction manual to assemble a one-of-a-kind human.
Now imagine a laser pulse snipping a hole in the blastocyst’s outermost shell so a handful of cells can be suctioned up by a microscopic pipette. This is the moment, thanks to advances in genetic sequencing technology, when it becomes possible to read virtually that entire instruction manual.
An emerging field of science seeks to use the analysis pulled from that procedure to predict what kind of a person that embryo might become. Some parents turn to these tests to avoid passing on devastating genetic disorders that run in their families. A much smaller group, driven by dreams of Ivy League diplomas or attractive, well-behaved offspring, are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to optimize for intelligence, appearance, and personality. Some of the most eager early boosters of this technology are members of the Silicon Valley elite, including tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.
But customers of the companies emerging to provide it to the public may not be getting what they’re paying for.
The future is so bright. Rich people owning all of the means of production, all the land, all the resources, and now, the ability to create perfect genetic babies. But they will surely keep the peasants around and provide for them. Surely.
Yeah eugenics is a real ethical quagmire. Who could have guessed?
Generally, humans suck at predicting unforeseen consequences.
“Nice kid you got there, too bad when you gave him extra lung capacity you also made him vulnerable to a few corona viruses. Better luck next time.”
— Nature.
Thing is, if they limited its use to “curing” genetic-based illnesses and disabilities in the womb, I’d be okay with that. But using it to create “designer babies” is not my favorite idea in the world. Plus of course it could lead to abuses like (extreme example) a tyrannical government telling its residents that they aren’t allowed to have children unless they agree to have those children modified with specific traits.
Gattaca is here, and it arrived quietly. “It’s just the best parts of you!”
One of my favourite movies was about this popular subject even back in 1997, but it didn’t stop it being relevant (and also very touching): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca)
Nature does it best. This would only lead to bad things.
The reason it can’t be stopped is because no country wants to fall behind other adversary countries.
The rich have always done this. You think rich people marry just anyone?
People already select for height, intelligence, and fitness in their partners. This is just skipping the discovery.
I hate this idea. It denies that atypical people can still have value. For instance, it is worth considering that [Alan Turing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing) and [John Nash ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forbes_Nash_Jr)would most likely be considered disabled in todays world. (Not to mention Hawking.) Would these people have ‘made the cut’? It seems unlikely to say the least.
Humans reproduce sexually. Sexual selection is basically eugenics. This is just doing it by intentionally manipulating the genes.
We are living in world that has accepted Idiocracy and Gattaca.
Perfect from an environment survival standpoint or from a vanity one? It could be said that melanation is a genetic advantage in a world with more solar exposure, but something like that would be edited out by those more focused on their personal cultural biases of beauty.
Perfection is a loaded word. It doesn’t exist.
Can they just fix the human lower back and maybe that stupid artery that runs through our midsection and call it a day?
Even if the “perfect” baby is created, trauma can change all of that. Trauma can cause anyone, regardless of “perfect” genes, to have life-long illnesses & disorders. This is not the golden gun they think this is. The emotional pressure these folks will put on these designer babies in & of itself could cause them to have personality disorders & other disorders. Those poor kids.