Riders of the New York City subway were startled recently by an ad campaign commissioned by a newly established reproductive technology company inviting potential customers to “have your best baby.” The company, Nucleus Genomics, suggested in the “outrage-bait” campaign that, using their service, riders might be able to determine the height and intelligence of their future offspring, among other things.
Such bold promises raise a number of questions, not the least of which is: “Is this not taboo anymore?” The long-reviled effort to improve the genetics of future generations, commonly referred to as eugenics, appears to be experiencing a revival of sorts. Only this time, it is being pitched, in the words of one of its promoters, as a “liberal eugenics.” In contrast to the coercive eugenics of the past that limited the reproductive autonomy of oppressed groups, today’s liberal version is merely supposed to assist future parents in bettering the life chances of their own progeny.
A further question is whether the degree of control over the traits of one’s children that Nucleus suggests it can achieve is even possible. The answer is: as of now, not really. The technology that Nucleus and a bevy of other similar companies use, polygenic embryo screening (PES), allows couples to select among the embryos they’ve produced according to different ratings that the companies provide. But the technology, according to numerous experts, has not yet shown the ability to deliver on the vision suggested in Nucleus’s campaign.
Regardless of PES’s present capabilities and how the technology matures, it does raise a number of ethical dilemmas entangled with the nature of human trait selection. Should this technology ever significantly advance or achieve widespread adoption, it will prove to be more than just a controversial curiosity.
Clinicians can only employ PES if they have ready access to embryos, so this technique is only available for potential…
Auteur: Daniel Colligan
