Genetically engineered children as products (McKibben)
May 7th, 2007 | Published in Genetic Engineering, Parenting, Quotes, Science, Technology | 14 Comments
[Genetically engineered] children will, in effect, be assigned a goal by their programmers: “intelligence,” “even temper,” “athleticism.” (As with chickens, the market will doubtless lean in the direction of efficiency. It may be hard to find genes for, say, dreaminess.)
Now two possibilities arise. Perhaps the programming doesn’t work very well, and your kids spells poorly, or turns moody, or can’t hit the inside fastball. In the present world, you just tell yourself that’s who he is. But in the coming world, he’ll be, in essence, a defective product. Do you still accept him unconditionally? Why? If your new Jetta got thirty miles to the gallon instead of the forty it was designed to get, you’d take it back. If necessary, you’d sue. You’d call it a lemon.
Or what if the engineering worked pretty well, but you decided, too late, that you’d picked the wrong package, hadn’t gotten the best features? Would you feel buyer’s remorse if the kid next door had a better ear, a stronger arm?
Say the gene work went a little awry and left you with a kid who had some serious problems; what kind of guilt would that leave you with? Remember, this is not a child created by the random interaction of your genes with those of your partner—this is a child created with specific intent. Does Consumer Reports start rating the various biotech offerings?
What if you had a second child five years after the first, and by that time the upgrades were undeniably improved: How would you feel about the first kid? How would you feel about his new brother, the latest model?The other outcome—that the genetic engineering works just as you had hoped—seems at least as bad. Now your child is a product. You can take precisely as much pride in her achievements as you take in your dishwashing detergent. It was designed to produce streak-free glassware, and she was designed to be sweet-tempered, social, and smart. And what can she take pride in? Her good grades? She may have worked hard, but she’ll always know that she was specced for good grades. Her kindness to others? Well, yes, it’s good to be kind—but perhaps it’s not much of an accomplishment once the various genes with some link to sociability have been catalogued and manipulated.
–Bill McKibben, Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age (2003), 59-60
May 7th, 2007 at 10:14 pm (#)
I’m not so sure that the real problem (for Christians, anyway) is the inability to take pride (in oneself or one’s children).
In my opinion, the problem would be the usurpation of the role of creator; the giving of thanks to the wrong source (or to no source – not giving, or not even being able to give, thanks).
May 12th, 2007 at 11:25 am (#)
I have to say I for one am not looking forward to the mistakes. For instance, there is this video of a 2 nosed cow. SO GROSS! I don’t see how anyone eats meat when this is going on with our agriculture. Sometimes even the tomatoes seem scary with all the genetic modification but when it’s a sentient being it’s unacceptable. Check it out: http://thenewsroom.com/details/293754/Life and Leisure
April 21st, 2008 at 7:07 pm (#)
This world is unacceptable… the thought of children being minupulated even before birth is enough to make my skin crawel… and dont just think about it from the ethics standpoint, think of it for the future. Some traits that have been geneticly altered and are out of date, the genetic enginering inside your children could not be able to compete with future enhancements would they feel like an out of date computer? This procidure also is very expensive… what about the lower class who cant afford this for their kids. Will these children be shunned by their altered class mates? kids already tease eachother enough.. lets go ahead and presure them some more and by something thats not even their own fault, but their parents who couldnt afford a better body for them. Go ahead let these kids watch the others out do them in every catagory immaginable.. let them sit helplessly in a class room while all other students can grasp the subjects because their thought processes were altered.. let the simple abilities that we all have slowly shrink into meaning nothing… immagine every child a perfect one, until of course the new model steps in…
April 7th, 2009 at 9:30 pm (#)
I think it’s a good method to ensure a brighter future for humanity… Even today some kids are born with the “lucky genes” and surpass other students in their subjects. Why not organise this natural trend? Also, it’s probably going to be used for appearance long before mental editing… Hey, I’d love for my son/daughter to have naturally dark skin with green eyes and straight jet black hair… Although the blame on parents would increase exponentially for more and more things:
“Why did you have to make me so dark, I hate you”
(but even that still happens in the random world)
May 11th, 2009 at 6:03 pm (#)
What happens if one of your children is very very sick and the only way she will survive is with an exact match in dna? So you genetically engineer to have another daughter who will be able to provide blood/marrow/organs. Is that bad?? because on the one hand you have a child dying and you know that you can fix all the problems if you provide a donor..but on the other hand that child born out of a test tube will still be human and may not want to donate her body..
October 12th, 2009 at 9:45 am (#)
Read ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ Kate.
January 4th, 2010 at 12:33 pm (#)
i think that parents should be able to. i have a mentle disability and if i had a choice i would of took it. i would have been a normal kid!
April 7th, 2010 at 5:33 pm (#)
It shouldn’t matter which is moral by everybody’s different opinions. If it saves lives, it’s worth furthering research. If we suddenly discover that it inhumanely kills the genetically engineered, then obviously we need to stop. But at this point neither has been proven, so screw your “morals” and take a freaking chance. It could save hundreds of lives in the future. You can’t fairly judge what you know nothing about.
April 30th, 2010 at 3:55 pm (#)
it is up to g-d to decide traits, not people in lab coats. i agree with jessica. Society will be seperated: the perfect people and the regular people. So how will the regulars compete?
this quote from the Incredibles speaks the truth: “Everyone’s special, Dash.’ ‘Which is another way of saying no one is”
April 5th, 2011 at 3:19 pm (#)
This is just like our society. Let the wealthy people (who will be the only ones to afford these procedures) make their kids even smarter by unatural ways. This will be a grat way to improve an American economy wich already favors the wealthy. NOT!
April 29th, 2011 at 7:33 am (#)
Theres’s no way this should be allowed as a cosmetic procedure or for enhancing someones IQ. If genetic engineering was used for medical purposes only, like to help a child likely to have a serious illness or disability. Im sure someone religious would disagree or say this would mess with the natural order of life and death. But I think this advancement in biotechnology could cure the future of disease. Thats a beautiful thing!
September 22nd, 2011 at 4:43 pm (#)
Honestly I’m a kid and I think it awesome that there are kids diffrent in the world.I wish i could be one acctually. I think it would be wicked cool if they mixed avain DNA with the human DNA. Make 2% avain bird and 98% human. I totally would love to have wings and better vision and strength!!! I have dreamed of that for years while im tortured with school and kids who hate me. How fair is that there could be kids who don’t go to school because they are special and some of us who get picked on would love what they get to be. They could also possibly survive when the “end of the world” comes. Man, if you could only imagine how much i want to be a kid/bird. I think it would make my life easier if I was
September 22nd, 2011 at 5:00 pm (#)
Can you make kids who want to be diffrent diffrent even if they are already born? If you can do it and find me. I hate my life how it is and i want to make it my own choice. First you’d have to improve better with the genes though. I don’t care about being smarter.
September 27th, 2011 at 10:20 am (#)
I think that by doing this we are taking the child’s right away to be original and not be like everyone else. By having your child be the same or not unique what will make he or she special. When you do that you are basically saying if your child were to come out any diffident then you would not accept them as they are.