Is the practice of eugenics ethical?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Is the practice of eugenics ethical?
Position1 of 2›: Eugenics is unethical
Argument‹2 of 3›: Eugenics is an effort to play God

We should leave the human race's genetic design up to nature. When people use genetic engineering to alter humans, they are deciding perfection, which should not be left up to anyone.

The argument

The human race's genetic components should be up to nature. They should not be based on the parent's preferences. Since the definition of perfection is subjective to each person, it is impossible for a person to truly decide what is best. If parents are able to choose genetic traits for their child, this will inevitably lead to multiple standards of perfection. Due to the subjectivity of perfection, people will likely be influenced by their own environment, culture, and feelings. This can lead to a culture’s preference for one trait and prejudice towards another. By playing God and creating what parents prefer, they are fostering an environment that looks down upon other traits. In extreme situations, this could mirror the abuse of eugenics in Nazi Germany.

Premises

[P1]A person's genetic makeup should be left to nature rather than to subjective parental preferences about perfection. [P2] Because perfection is subjective and shaped by culture, allowing parents to choose traits creates competing standards and prejudice against disfavoured traits. [P3] Playing God this way fosters an environment that looks down on certain traits, which in the extreme mirrors the eugenic abuses of Nazi Germany. [C] Therefore, because eugenics is an effort to play God, the practice of eugenics is unethical.

Counter-arguments

A person's preference of one trait over another does not necessarily mean that they have a prejudice against those that do not match them. While Nazi Germany was focused on eliminating groups of people as a form of discrimination and negative eugenics, this is not the case for someone that prefers a physical enhancement. Humans should be given the ability to genetically alter themselves through eugenic procedures such as gene therapy. If all of human life was left up to nature, this would eliminate the use of any medical practices that prolong life. Eugenics has the possibility of eradicating certain diseases and prolonging a person's life.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Leaving the body to nature is not a principle medicine follows anywhere else — vaccination, surgery and treatment for inherited disease all intervene in what nature would otherwise do — so the premise would rule out far more than it intends. [Rejecting P2] Preferring one trait does not entail contempt for its absence, and the premise does not distinguish selecting against a disabling or fatal condition, where the standard is not a matter of taste, from selecting for a cosmetic or social preference. [Rejecting P3] The comparison conflates a state programme of forced sterilisation and extermination directed at whole groups with a decision a parent makes about their own child; the wrongs of coercive state eugenics do not transfer to a voluntary choice merely because the two share a name.