By David Quinn

When the first ‘test tube baby’ was born in 1978, the world ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’. That was understandable, but the widespread delight that an infertile couple had achieved their dream of having a baby tended to squash the very real ethical concerns that In Vitro Fertilisation ought to give rise to. One of these concerns, and there are many, is that it strengthens and perpetuates a eugenic mentality. If we can make a baby to order, as it were, then why not ‘order’ the best baby science can deliver?

An article in the Guardian perfectly illustrates this attitude. Called ‘Who needs sex to make babies? Pretty soon, humans won’t’, the writer, Henry Greely, writes that soon enough, scientists will be able to take a woman’s skin cells, turn them into stem cells, and then turn them into eggs.

This will allow a fertility clinic in short order to produce 100 embryos from which the woman or the couple can choose.

Greely writes: “A couple who wants children will visit a clinic – he will leave a sperm sample; she will leave a skin sample. A week or two later, the prospective parents will receive information on 100 embryos created from their cells, telling them what the embryos’ genomes predict about their future. Prospective parents will then be asked what they want to be told about each embryo – serious early onset genetic diseases, other diseases, cosmetic traits, behaviours, and, easiest but important to many: gender. Then they will select which embryos to move into the womb for possible pregnancy and birth.”

He assures us that this will not lead to “super babies”.  However, he can hardly deny that they are ‘designer babies’ because he says the technique he supports “will produce children who have little or no chance of some serious diseases; better than normal chances of avoiding other diseases; preferred hair or eye colours; slightly better chances of high maths, sports, or musical ability; and who are of the parents’ preferred sex.”

This is, in short, eugenics (literally meaning, ‘well born’). This is a violation of human dignity and equality, properly understood. Jurgen Habermas (a leading secular thinker greatly admired by President Michael D Higgins), has argued against ‘designer babies’ in his book, ‘The Future of Human Nature’.

He argues that designed persons can no longer own themselves. They are deprived of the liberty that comes from the fact that no one has interfered with the essence of their being and as a result their genetic makeup has come into existence through chance.

In addition, because these designed people are not equal to the designer, they are deprived of equality.

It is hard to put the argument better than that. Babies are increasingly being seen as products that are made to order. Our attitude towards them becomes consumerist, and we are becoming increasingly intolerant towards babies that are less than ‘perfect’.