Ronald Bailey on the Moral Case for Designer Babies

Should prospective parents seek information about
gene variants that increase the risk their children will develop
diseases as adults? Should physicians provide that information?
Some bioethicists believe that such pre-birth testing is wrong,
arguing that the information could stigmatize kids or lead parents
to terminate pregnancies of genetically at-risk fetuses. Children,
they contend, have a right to an “open future” unburdened by the
knowledge of their genetic predispositions for adult onset
illnesses. Ronald Bailey rejects the notion that genetic ignorance
is somehow liberating and lauds genome sequencing as a means for
people to safely reproduce when they would not have been able to
otherwise.

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