Scientific café — Designer babies: Medical Miracle or Moral Disaster

Professor Tom Shakespeare
Thursday 1 September 2005
Café Morkku, Finnish National Theatre

Designer babies: a concept (bambini progetati)
Lee Silver — Remaking Eden
Genetically rich, and poor people
Francis Fukuyama
Redesigning the human species. Sttrategies:

choose your partner
avoid the birth of babies with certain disabilities (limited, traumatic)
PGD (pre-implantation genetic diagnosis), IVF (in-vitro fertilization)

On the 2nd day, the embryo is a cluster of 16 cells. Pick one cell: perform a genetic diagnosis.
Low success rate
Extension of use — originally blocked Fallopian channels
Carrier: enough of a criterion? Cystic fibrosis
Breast cancer (potential)
What is serious enough? Altzeimer?

'Child like me' (e.g. deaf)
Personality, intelligence, sexuality (no genes for those)
Tweak it a little bit

Should they be allowed to do that?
How far does it go?

John Conclaver (?) XXth century
Petra dish
"Gift not commodity" — inconsistency
"they would be their brother"
Biological vs. social
Nancy Roughgarden (?) — homosexuality among animals
Spina bifida
Choosing the world we want — eugenic statement
Disabled people bring something to the world.
They report a better satisfaction, statistically
Avoid disabilities or avoid disabled people?
Down syndrome — save money
China: a law to prevent and a law to protect
30000 children die per day
The expressivist objection: it sends a message — that disabilities are terrible.

British Council page, Scientific café: Climate change,
Conferences ToC

Marc Girod

Last modified: Thu Sep 8 14:17:32 EEST 2005