Rebecca Dresser and John Robertson Essay

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I do not believe that wearing glasses or make-up is wrong, even though this is an enhancement of the human body by improving one's life by being able to see, or covering blemishes and unsightly birthmarks that might make an individual self-conscious. Is selecting the best sperm donor really so much different than a man or a woman basing his or her choice of a mate upon that individual's appearance, intelligence, and lack of unpleasant 'skeletons' in the genetic closet? Svaulescu's idea that one has a moral obligation to screen for genetic defects or to personally improve the human race through reproduction makes one queasy, but the idea of leaving everything up to nature, in theory, would mean an end of folic acid for pregnant women or even birth control.

But really, the ultimate argument for allowing patients to attempt to engineer their offspring by selecting 'better sperm' may be the query of how effective such policies really are in terms of changing the nature of the human race. Although genetics undeniably plays a factor in terms of passing on heritable diseases, on the other hand, there is no sure-fire way to predict a child will be a music prodigy or an Einstein, based upon his or her genetic history.

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So parents and scientists may attempt to 'engineer' away, but aside from limiting the transmission of certain specific genetic diseases that run in families, it is likely that we as a species still have less control over our future prodigy than we would like to admit. There may be a genetic coding for cystic fibrosis, but not for a talent at literature -- tendencies can be predicted, not absolutes. Although identical twins share more similarities with one another than the general population, even individuals with the same genetic makeup and environment still exhibit differences. Thus, even if Svaulescu's ideal society came into being, the discrepancies between what can be predicted through engineering would thwart his attempts at improvement, and since attempts at genetic engineering have been made, one could ask -- has the number of geniuses really increased in the world, not measured on IQ tests, but in terms of great work that has been done in the world by the scientifically 'engineered'?.....

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