Shaping Our Future: The Implications of Genetic Enhancement

Abstract

If predictions are correct, the capacity to enhance children at the genetic level may be coming over the course of the future.1 Supporters of the technology suggest that it has the promise to fulfil some of the lofty hopes crafted by human imagination, the eradication of disease and the expansion of human capacities. Critics, offering a bleaker picture of the future, maintain that it is the height of human arrogance to presume that we will be able to control and master our genetics in the way in which scientists predict. They warn that if enhancing unborn children is put into practice, grave consequences may ensue. Although it may be misguided to condemn gene therapy categorically, there are compelling reasons to have reservations about using the technology for enhancement purposes.