Gattaca Moral Analysis

One of the chief moral questions surrounding this type of genetic engineering is how it changes the natural process of birth. The creation of a human has always required the combination of one man’s sperm and one woman’s egg. The introduction of a third donor changes this dynamic by allowing a random person to contribute to the process when they will likely play little to no role in the remainder of the child’s life. That is the argument by the morally righteous, at least. But it is hard to view adding a third person as more immoral than letting a child inherit a possibly fatal disease. As UK Prime Minister David Cameron reasoned in voting for allowing three-person babies, “We're not playing god here, we're just making sure that two parents
the inferior non-genetically modified. This type of societal isolation is perfectly exemplified in the film Gattaca in which the naturally conceived become worthless to society and work only the lowest and least important of jobs while the modified people dominate society. While this problem could, in theory, be slightly plausible there are many reasons to doubt it would happen. For one, as Nick Bostrom wrote, having some genetically superior intellectuals, “could change the world through their creativity and discoveries, and through innovations that everyone else would use” (Regalado). While they would be designed to be intellectually genetically superior, they could use this knowledge to create a better world for everyone. There is already knowledge inequality in today’s society thus having an intellectually superior group would not necessarily create additional tension. There is no reason this distinction would create any tension, yet that is not the only potential class problem brought up in anti-designer baby
One of the beliefs is that picking out our children’s features objectifies them as people are doing whatever they want to their children rather than treating them as equals (Resnik). In a discussion on the ethics of designer children, in which attendees were giving catalogs of traits for their children, “The idea of selecting traits based on a catalog induced anxiety in the audience. The designing aspect seemed to promote the objectification of babies as commodities” (Hoang). While the idea of a catalog of traits can seem objectifying, this is not much different than plastic surgery. In addition, by making a child look more like their ideal child, parents are really just trying to aid them, not hurt them. People have constantly used products to make themselves look as good as possible and designing a child’s looks is no different than this. Humans are constantly searching for a way to improve and designing physically appealing children is just a new form of this