Ronald Bailey Makes the Moral Case for Designer Babies

Should prospective parents seek information about
gene variants that increase the risk that their children will
develop diseases that manifest themselves when they are adults?
Should physicians give the information to them? Some bioethicists
believe that such testing is wrong, arguing that such information
could stigmatize the child and that it may suggest that people with
genetic illness predispositions should never have been born. They
further argue that children have a right to an “open future” in
which they are not burdened with the knowledge of their genetic
predispositions for adult onset illnesses. Reason Science
Correspondent Ronald Bailey argues that whatever some bioethicists
might believe, autonomy is never enhanced by ignorance.

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