The Next Exciting Ethical Dilemma!

Get psyched, kids: Eugenics is back, and it's looking much friendlier. All of those "eu" words that were are so positive in etymology seem creepy these days, don't they? Euphoria is a little psychotic and delirious, utopia quickly leads to communism and dystopia, and Eugene's a total dweeb. But eugenics has the worst connotation of them all. Mention the word and all anyone can think of is forced sterilization by the Nazis. Which was bad. Really bad. But the new eugenics is so morally ambiguous, and it may inspire some great ethical discussion.

Here's the deal: Slowly, we're learning more about the genetic and prenatal factors that can influence traits in a fetus. And we're learning how to test for them. So the obvious question arises: How much choice should parents have? What should they select for? Right now we can test for Down's Syndrome, and over 90% of the fetuses diagnosed are aborted. There's some controversy over this, but not a whole lot. It seems like a fairly large majority of Americans wouldn't blame a mother for terminating a pregnancy if she knew her kid was going to have a reasonably serious illness or disability. Still, this kind of thing doesn't do much good for living people who have that illness or disability and their families. As fewer people have these issues, demand for treatment decreases, and it's harder for people to find support from others they can relate to. The more people abort fetuses with Down's Syndrome, the more pressure there is to abort a kid with Down's Syndrome...the fewer people there are with the disease the greater the consequences of having it are. Also, people tend to be less sympathetic to illnesses they see as preventable. And, yeah, I guess screening and selective abortion is a method of prevention. And it's eugenics. Intervening to reduce suffering, boost intelligence, whatever.

And then we get beyond disease to other traits. It is cool to select for IQ? Hair color? Sexual orientation? The last one's a doozy. If a parent wants to select for a straight kid, it's like that a gay kid would face some problems growing up with that parent. Still, it just seems really creepy to say it's OK to select for your kid's sexual orientation. But whom is this parent harming? The gay community at large? By making the world population of gay people smaller and therefore making it harder to be gay or by not forcing herself to accept gay people and contribute to a better universal attitude toward sexual diversity? And as I saw a somewhat sketchy scientist discuss (thanks to CM for the paper), if people can abort for not wildly compelling reasons (could handle another kid, but don't really want one), why can't they abort for this reason?

I'm totally conflicted on these issues, which is kind of great. I love a good dilemma...and that kind of testing for sexual orientation is a little ways away anyway, so I don't have to worry that I'm screwing anyone over by being conflicted. My instinct is to say that it's a parent's right to select the child on whatever stupid criteria they want, so I don't think parents should be legally barred from this testing. On the moral question, I think it's morally wrong to prefer many traits strongly enough that you would choose to abort a fetus—go through an unpleasant procedure and risk having issues that aren't currently present with a future pregnancy—rather than have a child with that trait. I think someone who prefers hair color that strongly is just a little pathetic, and frankly, I think someone who prefers sexual orientation that strongly is, well, kind of a bad person. But I think given those attitudes, the decision to selectively abort is not itself immoral. I don't think it's the responsibility of any individual parent to help a minority by bearing a child who's part of that minority. I'm open to changing my mind, though. That's why I think it's a cool topic.