If You Don't Talk About Genetic Enhancement, Parents Won't Know About It

One point in response to the argument that we shouldn't talk about enhancement

Photo by Janko Ferlič

Richard Hanania

and

Jonathan Anomaly

discussed genetic enhancement on a recent episode of the CSPI podcast “Building Better People.” During the conversation, around the 33-minute mark, Richard Hanania makes an argument that is relatively common among people sympathetic to genetic enhancement. The argument goes something like this:

Genetic enhancement is already possible and happening. Parents who are interested have the ability to use a service like Genomic Prediction to select embryos for polygenic traits. This technology will only continue to advance. It is currently legal in the United States, but many people would be very interested in regulating the practice or completely banning it. If we raise too much interest, we risk getting the practice banned or regulated. Therefore, it is best to keep the potential benefits of enhancement a secret and allow the widespread adoption, at which point it will be difficult to regulate.

This is a reasonable argument, and I understand the appeal. Jonathan Anomaly responds that we should try to speed up this technology and get people to support it. He believes that if Asians begin using genetic enhancement, Europeans and Americans might try to stop it. He wants to get out in front of it and ensure that there are libertarian laws around enhancement. I think Anomaly is largely correct, but I want to add the point that you need people to know about the practice so that they can benefit from it.

The primary technology for genetic enhancement is embryo selection during in vitro fertilization (IVF). Many older mothers would undergo preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A), and structural chromosomal rearrangement (PGT-SR). Parents at particular risk for a disorder resulting from a single gene variant may want to undergo preimplantation genetic testing for monogenic diseases (PGT-M). Recent advances have allowed parents to test for polygenic disorders (PGT-P). The first baby born after undergoing polygenic trait selection was born in the summer of 2020 (Genomic 2021, Q2).

If someone finds IVF morally permissible, they will usually find PGT-A, PGT-SR, and PGT-M acceptable. PGT-P is different because it can confer seriously beneficial advantages rather than merely assisting in avoiding miscarriage and having a child of average health. Large enough batches of embryos or enough rounds of PGT-P from even average parents could make a child significantly healthier than average. Furthermore, since psychological traits are genetically influenced, parents could select children based on traits like conscientiousness, intelligence, or positive affect. A concept that many people find unacceptable.

Even if supporters of genetic enhancement found it better not to discuss the issue, companies like Genomic Prediction will want to make the benefits of their service known to the public. Other companies which offer selection for psychological traits will also want to advertise their services. It may be inevitable that self-interested companies will try to make their services known, and cynical journalists will attack them. It would be good if many people found protecting this right important and worth defending. But it is hard to get people to care deeply unless they understand the world-changing potential of genetic enhancement.

Not discussing the benefits of PGT-P also means that some people are unfamiliar with the practice. The benefits are perhaps large enough that even parents who would not normally undergo IVF would want to select embryos for polygenic traits, especially among the wealthy. If nobody ever highlights the benefits, then many parents will never know that they could benefit from the service. I would not have known about this technology unless I encountered people discussing the issue online. If nobody ever talked about it, nobody would know it’s possible unless they independently conceived of it.

Perhaps the opponents of the practice are the ones who should consider not mentioning it. If they highlight the downsides and attack the practice, they may create an interest in people. This was at least the case with a parent of the first PGT-P baby Aurea Smigrodzki, whose father, Rafal Smigrodzki, stumbled across a critical article in MIT Technology Review entitled “Eugenics 2.0: We’re at the Dawn of Choosing Embryos by Health, Height, and More.” Rather than coming away from the article with a negative view of the practice, it appears he developed an interest that resulted in a personal desire to use the procedure with his girlfriend. Extreme controversy may be beneficial if it does not result in a ban.

I suspect many negative articles will backfire. The natural appeal of having a healthy, smart, and happy child is very strong for many. Think of the lengths parents go to with environmental interventions to benefit their children. While some may publicly oppose the practice and condemn it as eugenics, many may change their mind when the opportunity is facing them, and the prospect of having a healthier child is real. Thankfully, parents usually care more about their children than their egalitarian ethical beliefs.