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Designer babies in our Future part 3

The psychological risks of gene interventions are another major source of concern. Will the ability to select a child's traits deform parenting, changing it from unconditional acceptance to an emotionally destructive search for perfection? Will it transform the child from a 'gift' to a consumer purchase? These are among the most frequently voiced questions regarding human genetic engineering found in the ethical literature. But these fears underestimate the power of parental love. The panels of prenatal tests that are commonly used today do not seem to have eroded the quality of parenting. Parents seeking an abled child, love a disabled one. In the future, parents seeking an enhanced child will probably still love whatever child they get. In other words, the very intensity of the parental love that critics see as at risk may be the best protection against the erosion of that love. Furthermore, by increasing parents' knowledge of their child's aptitudes, some gene interventions may actually improve parenting skills. For example, by reducing the incidence of inherited dyslexia and other reading disorders, gene interventions may help break patterns of underachievement that trouble family relationships.
Impacts on Human Freedom?
Some believe that genetic interventions will limit our freedom. They fear that instead of being able to see our life as 'self-created', we will have to attribute all our successes or failures to parental programming. But this argument mistakes genetic ignorance for freedom. We are all shaped, in part by our genes and, in part by the environments in which we live, act and choose. Ignorance of the genetic factors bearing on us is not the same as freedom, and understanding those factors does not have to reduce our freedom or diminish our opportunities for personal choice. Someone's freedom would be impaired only if parents succumb to genetic determinism, overestimate the role that genes play, and then try to force the child to conform to a mold of their own making. However, rather than prohibiting gene interventions, these problems could be addressed by education and counseling.
Genetics & Justice
If the affluent use their money to buy superior competitive skills, will gene enhancements undermine social justice by creating an enduring 'genobility'? This, again, is a leading concern voiced in both the fictional and ethical literature on human genetic engineering. The problem is a real one in societies like those in the USA, where there are already such wide disparities in access to basic healthcare, and where it is hard to imagine useful gene enhancements being made available to everyone. This problem is magnified at the global level, where widespread inequities in healthcare access exist.
But what the critics of gene interventions miss is the possibility that genetics may also be a tool for enhancing social justice. Instead of merely redistributing the economic fruits of talents, as progressives have traditionally urged, we can imagine a society where talents themselves, especially better physical stamina and better cognitive skills, are more widely shared. Although most of the problems that foster social injustice are unrelated to our genes, some do have a genetic origin. Poor reading and computational skills may be examples. It has been noted that in many poor regions of the world, children's cognitive abilities are often impaired by iodine deficiency, leading some to argue that the provision of iodized salt may be one efficient and dramatic way of encouraging economic and social development. Although genetic interventions may never be this easy, it could prove true that some cognitive and educational problems may be more readily handled by genetic means than by costly and less efficient post-birth educational efforts. If we are to address these problems in ways that reduce rather than magnify social injustice, however, we must see to it that useful genetic interventions are treated like vaccines - something that should be made available to all members of society.

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