What is appalling about Gattaca-like scenarios?

Abstract

In a not too distant future, couples can consult an artificial fertilization specialist and choose the characteristics of their future child. They can select in vitro fertilized embryos and alter their genetic traits, eliminating genes capable of expressing diseases or even undesirable physical characteristics. Recent techniques, such as gene editing through Prime Editing or CRISPR-Cas9, will soon allow gene therapies in in vitro fertilized embryos prior to their uterine implantation. In this article, we intend to briefly evaluate these possibilities, critically reviewing some leading arguments in the literature against the indiscriminate use of such techniques (such as the slippery slope argument, the precautionary argument, the restriction of human rights, and the arguments of influential thinkers, such as Grobstein, Habermas and Sandel). In the end, we defend that the permission of eugenic practices must be based on the protection of human rights, adding, however, some limits to the indiscriminate use of these techniques in protecting the value of freedom, individuality, as well as the reduction of social inequality.