Should I have the right to design my own baby?
Imagine a world in which you can walk into you doctor’s office and fill in a questionnaire to decide whether your son or daughter will be immune to HIV, cancer and hemophilia, whether he or she will have green or blue eyes, the same IQ as Einstein or the same legs as Usain Bolt. Imagine a world in which you can determine you child’s sensitivity to pain and therefore increase his or her potential happiness — as advocated by British philosopher David Pearce, who co-founded the World Transhumanist Association (Humanity+)[1].
Sounds like science fiction? Well, such a scenario may not be that far away. To introduce our subject, let’s listen to He Jankui, an American professor who works at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China. He claims to have created the first gene-edited children in human history, the twins Lulu and Nana[2]:
Section I — Why should we care?
Recent improvements in gene therapy have made the technology behind “designer babies”, that is to say, babies whose genetic make-up has been selected in order to eradicate a particular defect or to ensure that a particular gene is present[3], almost ready to use.
As discovered by British biologist Charles Darwin, the current human genome is the result of thousands of years of natural selection, random genetic mutations being passed through from generations to generations when they allow a better adaptation to the environment. In addition, through selective breeding, humanity has been artificially strengthening useful traits in plants and animals for centuries. Genetic engineering may be the next step in the history of human evolution.
We’re on the eve of the Post-Darwinian Transition, not in the sense that selection pressure will be any less severe, but evolution will no longer be “blind” and “random” — David Pearce[1]
Today, three main technologies can be used to willingly conduct genetic engineering:
- Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) does not involve any gene editing. It enables parents to screen multiple eggs and select those that best satisfy their desires. This technique has been used as early as 1990 on human embryos to detect genetic diseases[4].
- TALENs (Transcription Activator-like Effector Nucleases) are enzymes used to remove part of the genetic code and replace it with alternative genes.
- CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Inter-spaced Short Palindromic Repeats) was inspired by bacteria that were able to recognize and erase the DNA of viruses that previously attacked them. This revolutionary technology has reduced the cost of gene editing from thousands to hundreds of dollars, it is less complex than previous methods, and implementation only takes a few days[5].
Such technologies open up tremendous opportunities to improve human life.
From medical uses…
According to the World Health Organization, over 10,000 genetic diseases are caused by a single incorrect letter in our DNA. By correcting the defective code or strengthening babies’ immune system, gene editing could eradicate forever thousands of currently incurable illnesses, like cancer, blood disorders, cystic fibrosis... We could therefore argue that we are ethically obliged to allow genetic engineering in human embryos, because not doing so would condemn children to preventable suffering and death!
… to human enhancement and “baby shopping”
However, genetic engineering paves the way for many other mental and physical transformations, and the line with medical applications is not always easy to draw. If one has the right to create a child immune to Alzheimer, why not also gift him with perfect eyesight, super intelligence, strong muscles, bright hair… or even the ability to breath under water? Parents typically want what is best for their offspring. But nobody knows precisely what the best outcome actually is, as illustrated by the following study conducted on 1,000 parents or parents to be:
The reproductive revolution of “designer babies” seems inevitable, at least in the medium to long term. Yet saying that we can do something does not mean that we should do it: the scientific community reacted to He Jankui’s recent announcement with great skepticism, calling his work “premature” as well as “morally and ethically problematic.”[6] In order to determine whether or not we should be given the right to design babies, we will adopt a consequentialist approach, as defined by Peter Singer in his book Practical Ethics: we will try to weigh the risks associated with genetically-modified babies against their potential benefits.
Consequentialists start not with moral rules but with goals. They assess actions by the extent to which they further these goals. — Peter Singer [7]
Section II — What are the issues raised by “designer babies”?
Technological issues — What if everything goes wrong?
First of all, the process of designing babies is not perfect yet. While targeting a specific DNA sequence, scientists could end up affecting other genes, and wrong edits may replace the initial disease by a new one. Unpredictable errors are also likely to occur, that we would not be able to identify before the baby is born. Following the distinction drawn by Frank Knight, due to the random nature of mutations, genetic engineering still belongs to the realm of non-quantifiable uncertainty as opposed to quantifiable risk. [8]
What makes it particularly dangerous is the hereditary dimension of genetic manipulation: designing babies would introduce gradual but irreversible changes to the human gene pool, each single change being passed on to future generations. This is referred to as gene drive. As a result, the weigh given to the well-being (classical utilitarianism) or the preferences (preference utilitarianism) of future babies should be considered much higher than that of parents today.
Political issues — Brave New World 2.0
Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World, published in 1932, offers a brilliant display of a society where eugenics are a cornerstone of the State. To summarize, it tells the story of a world where all human beings are born in laboratories, and their fetuses receive treatments according to the role they are destined for. Hence, the ‘betas’ are made simple-minded and docile on purpose, while the alphas have all the best traits to occupy top roles in the new society. Additionally, those who live outside of the ‘superstate’ are called savages and are kept in natural reserves for touristic purposes. Huxley’s work is of the science-not-so-fiction kind as he wrote it at a time when eugenics were fashionable and promoted by various States, mainly in Germany and in the United States.
As a matter of fact, eugenics’ bad reputation is mostly due to its association to Nazism. However, Nazi Germany was not the only place where political power embraced eugenics. From sterilization of the disabled or marginal individuals to immigration quotas for certain races (such as the Jews or the Eastern European for the United States), the State has been interested in perfecting its population through selective breeding. The potential benefits are high for a country that seeks betterment: eugenics may provide stronger soldiers to wage war, more efficient workers to thrive economically, smarter people to get rid of crime and moral degeneracy (or at least that is how politicians thought at the time). Such population control at this scale can only be organized by the State, so it is no surprise that the political took eugenics for itself.
Quite evidently, State organized eugenics do not go without risks. Without necessarily going to the Nazi case of mass extermination, selective breeding is indeed a violent form of political coercion. It can lead to ethnocide and alters the gene pool of humanity for good, which can lead to public hygiene problems (some ethnies are less resistant to certain diseases for instance). It also gives to the State unlimited power over the individual, even more than death penalty. In fact, not only does it give State power over the individual but also his potential offspring. In addition to that, state of the art eugenics today enable States to actually create better humans, who can, speaking in absolute, be used for bellicist purposes and destabilize the world.
Huxley’s Brave New World shows exactly the tension between the wish for social progress obtained through eugenics and the fallacy of a perfect society. While at first the novel’s world seems perfectly ordered and peaceful due to the extreme docility of all individuals (they accept the following principle: to each their role according to their genes), the characters, by meeting members of the ruling class as well as meeting some of the ‘savages’, realize that it is nothing but slavery and that there is no room for individuality in their society.
To summarize, while State organized eugenics seem highly beneficial in terms of social progress and absolute power for the State, the ethical grounds it lies upon are shaky. Ultimately, State organized eugenics lead to political violence.
Social issues — Towards new forms of discrimination?
One of the biggest arguments against genetic engineering is that it reinforces existing forms of inequality. First and foremost, the high price excludes the poor from available techniques; for example, in vitro fertilization and gender selection. There is also another concern regarding racism, that is not grounded on skin color but rather the two tiers of human beings: ones with genetic makeup and ones without. The ethical frameworks will help us take a look through these social concerns.
Deontology believes that the answer between right and wrong when it comes to designing a baby depends on our action that is attached to certain moral norms. Deontological transhumanism then aims at improving humans’ ability to behave good according to those rules. The procedure in allowing us to achieve the goal should be equally distributed to everyone. There should not be any discrimination between people when granting access to genetic modification. Nevertheless, reality is not easy. Some uneducated people at various corners in this world are still unaware of this medical possibility. The right to design our babies thus expands the existing gap between the rich and the poor. Babies who get genetically modified will become good citizens who capably respect moral norms of a society while babies without genetic modification lose the opportunity to improve their ability to follow such norms. The result of genetic engineering for deontologists first ruins the core of its beliefs and further backfires on the society as a whole.
Future perspective of deontological transhumanism, however, allows us to have hope for better ethical rules. Babies who are born with favorable genes will be smarter, healthier and stronger. What goes beyond their increased ability to adhere current moral rules is their potential to establish new ethical norms for society. The best we could expect is that, with intelligence and rationality, they are able to make a better decision to mitigate the situation of discrimination by changing existing moral norms and regulations. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that babies with intelligence enhancement would become moral adults in the future. The conflict between the two tiers on the other hand could be intensified.
What if rightness and wrongness of designer babies relies on the consequences? Is any form of discrimination acceptable? The answer from consequentialism seems to be “yes”. Artificial manipulation not only reduces risk of genetic disorders and diseases but also prevents those certain traits from being genetically transmitted to the next generation members of a family. Discrimination does not change the fact that the quality of one human being is improved. In this case, using technology to design a baby maximizes the net social benefit.
However, we sometimes need carefulness to think like a utilitarian. The satisfaction of parents who succeed in having their child genetically edited might be potentially observed. What about the parents who fail to do so just because of their social and economic constraints? Another aspect of pain from discrimination is piled onto their previous disappointment. We now have two major difficulties in following utilitarianism. First, the complex happiness of the poor parents could not be explicitly measured by a state since their unfulfilled preferences come from multi-layered causes. Second, a large number of parents being unable to access the medical methods will result in a large number of preferences that could not be satisfied. This rule also applies to hedonistic utilitarianism. The total happiness of society could significantly shrink because of inequalities. In this case, will a utilitarian still deem designer babies morally acceptable? Perhaps, the more considerable question is how to give everyone equal access to designing his baby.
The fact that technological advancements allow parents to choose the preferable traits of their children also raises the question of sexism and racism. It might be true that skin color and gender selection of baby could complicate the current problems regarding those issues, but we cannot conclude that parents who prefer something over the other thing are racist or sexist. We, nowadays, believe in human dignity and value. As far as the two moral theories, deontology and consequentialism, are concerned, yet again it comes back to the question of why babies, who are genetically modified to be happier and more rational, would degrade our good morality that has taken such a time to develop.
Ethical issues — Are we ready to “play God” with human nature?
As already mentioned, eugenics and advocates of designer babies also consider genetic modification of not only physical but also psychological features of human beings. David Pearce in “The Abolitionist Project”[1] argues for the enhancement of hedonistic tones through inducing positive feelings and emotions, and abolishing or at least limiting negative human traits. Pearce argues for the abolition of suffering in the world, by not complete erosion of negative feelings but through inducing traits such as empathy or sociability. He argues we can preserve “the functional analogues of pain, anxiety, guilt and even depression without their nasty raw feels as we understand them today” or that we can “retrain discontent”. However, he does not give much information about what discontent is for him, or how functional analogues of these feelings can be preserved without suffering… While many of us can agree that his ideal world without suffering sound wonderful, he gives less evidence on the feasibility of such procedures, or more importantly the consequences.
As Philip Ball points out in a 2017 article for The Guardian, while we have sufficient knowledge for “cosmetic” gene modification, or to avoid certain hereditary diseases, we know very little in terms of personality traits or IQ and to which genes they are connected [9].
Apart from feasibility, another issue lies in the consequences. If we have artificially “lower level” of negative and “higher level” of positive feelings, how would that impact our overall personality? Do we need to feel sadness to be empathetic? How does one emotion impact the other? What is the relationship between them? What is the role of environment and social context in our emotions? What will happen with gender differences and hormone levels? More prominent distinction between “masculine and feminine feelings” or erasal of those? Consequently, do we expect more or less prominent sexism in the world? Suffering had greatly contributed throughout human history to try to avoid physical harm, motivate to be better, to find new technological inventions, to value more that we have and to be happy for small achievements as well. There are so many unanswered questions yet, that it is very risky to advocate for abolition, and deem parents as more responsible if they can modify emotions when in fact we have very little knowledge on its consequences.
Even Pearce in a 2005 interview was arguing that the ethical use of pharmacological tools are not possible “until we’ve gained control over our core Darwinian emotions”. Indeed, who gets to decide what traits are good and what traits are bad? While the decision should be that of the child, an unborn baby does not have the ability to choose for himself!
Pearce’s hedonistic imperative of abolishing suffering offers quite similar outcomes as any existing spiritual traditions such as religions and faiths. The hedonistic imperative calls for a re-connection with one’s spirituality in a hedonistic and euphoric way. He claims that with these future states of consciousness we will achieve a sublime state of well-being. Sounds like heaven on earth? It is interesting thus what religion might say about eugenics and this kind of human enhancement. As the debate on eugenics and transhumanism is not that much in the forefront it is very hard to distinguish and to claim what a given religion thinks about eugenics or transhumanism. A well known book in the topic is the so called “An Image of God: The Catholic Struggle with Eugenics” yet it is important to note that the book predominantly deals with the notion of eugenics in the early 20th century, meaning selective breeding, in a chaotic historical period for Europe. We can most probably expect most of the religion opposing birth control or abortion to be likely skeptical concerning the project. If God decided to make us suffer as a punishment, in order to find the right path, how could we possibly re-write God’s creation? But what about suffering of the innocent, those who does not deserve it? Along with possible critics we also find supporting group such as Buddhist Transhumanist or the Christian Transhumanist Association. The issue of possible human enhancement of spirituality and emotions through eugenics will likely spark debates among religious figures regarding ethical considerations.
Conclusion
The debate around eugenics is not about whether or not we can improve humanity, genetically speaking, but whether or not we should. It has deep implications in various fields: socially, politically, technologically. As our scientific knowledge and abilities have improved dramatically in the last decades, eugenics will become more and more a mainstream topic, even more so knowing that Nazism, which is associated with eugenics, is becoming a distant historical event. Gene editing is after all only a tool, and the right regulation should allow us to prevent abuses. Banning it altogether may instead let dangerous technologies fall into illegal hands…
Reference notes
[1] PEARCE, David. “The abolitionist project”, 2007. Link : https://www.abolitionist.com/
[2] Note: the scientific community and the Chinese government are still conducting studies to prove He Jankui’s claims.
[3] “Designer baby”, Oxford Dictionary, 2018. Link: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/designer_baby
[4] HANDYSIDE, Alan et al. “Pregnancies from biopsied human preimplantation embryos sexed by Y-specific DNA amplification”, Nature n°344, 1990 (pp768–770).
[5] JORGENSEN, Ellen. “What you need to know about CRISPR”, 24 October 2016. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BXYSGepx7Q
[6] “Lulu et Nana, premiers bébés génétiquement modifiés?”, L’Express, 26 November 2018. Link: https://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/sciences/lulu-et-nana-premiers-bebes-genetiquement-modifies_2050478.html
[7] SINGER, Peter. “About Ethics”, Practical Ethics, Cambridge University Press, 1993 (p3).
[8] KNIGHT, Frank. Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, Dover Publications, 1921.
[9] BALL, Philip. “Designer babies: an ethical horror waiting to happen?”, The Guardian, 8 January 2017.
Other references
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HRENKA, Radivis Michael. Transhumanism without ethics is incomplete, May 2015. Retrieved from Fractal Future Forum: https://forum.fractalfuture.net/t/transhumanism-without-ethics-is-incomplete/226
MEDIC, Antonia . Prezi, 23 May 2016. Retrieved from Ethics of designer babies: https://prezi.com/3c7vrvnwuy1c/ethics-of-designer-babies/
MOLINA, Gabriela. THE “DESIGNER BABY” DILEMMA: A NEW RACISM, 30 January 2016. Retrieved from Princeton Journal of Bioetics : https://pjb.mycpanel2.princeton.edu/wp/index.php/2016/01/30/the-designer-baby-dilemma-a-new-racism/
RACHELS, James. The Debate Over Utilitarianism. In J. Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy, 2003 (pp. 110–124). New York: The McGraw-Hill Company, Inc.
Interview with David Pearce, at HedWeb The Hedonistic Imperative and David Pearce’s Home Page, December 2005. Link: https://www.hedweb.com/hedethic/interview.htm
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