Eugenics is ethical when it is controlled by the individual

The argument

When decided by an individual, eugenics is an ethical practice. The argument turns entirely on who is making the decision, and it begins by conceding the historical objection rather than disputing it. In the past, eugenics was seen as unethical because groups of people were discriminated against in the name of science. Proponents of this position accept that judgement in full, but locate the wrong in coercion rather than in the genetic intervention itself: what made those programmes indefensible was that they were imposed on people who had been classified by someone else and given no say. Remove the imposition and, on this view, the objection no longer applies. If an individual decides to undergo a genetic treatment, it is clearly ethical, since it is by that person's own choice — the same principle that governs any other medical decision made by a competent adult about their own body. People should be allowed to improve their health through gene therapy as they see fit. The harder case is the one made next: that parents should be allowed to decide the genetic makeup of their children in order to ensure a healthier life for the child. Here the person affected cannot consent, so the argument relies on the authority parents already exercise. When a child is in the womb, the parents have authority over the child and their health, and they make consequential decisions on the child's behalf throughout its upbringing; genetic decisions are treated as continuous with those rather than as a new kind of power. The scope claimed is correspondingly narrow. The decisions in view are ones such as altering a child's genetic code in order to prevent the child from inheriting or transmitting genetic disease — health outcomes rather than preferences. If the parents are well informed and choose this for the health of their child, proponents argue, their practice of eugenics is ethical, because it carries none of the features that made the historical practice wrong.

Premises

Counter-arguments

It is unethical for parents to intervene with nature and change their child's features. Parents could abuse eugenics by using it for more than health purposes. This can lead to physical enhancements and appearance alterations based upon the preference of the parents. This can be influenced by negative motivations such as conformity with society. Widespread conformity such as this can be abused and lead to discrimination of those that are not designer babies.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise locates the wrong of historical eugenics in coercion alone, but those programmes also rested on a judgement that certain kinds of people were defective. The criterion, and not only the compulsion, is what the objection is usually aimed at, so consent removes one wrong while leaving the other untouched. [Rejecting P2] Gene therapy on a consenting adult is not eugenics in the sense the question uses. Treatment of a patient's own cells is not heritable and changes nothing about who is born, so it cannot serve as the ethical model for a practice defined by its effect on the composition of a population. The premise draws its plausibility from substituting an uncontroversial medical case for the contested one. [Rejecting P3] "Parents have authority over the child and their health" does the work here and is the least defended step. Parental authority is generally understood as exercised on the child's behalf and is limited where it conflicts with the child's interests. This decision is made before there is anyone to consult, is permanent, and passes to descendants who cannot be consulted either — which is a different kind of decision from ordinary medical consent, and from which the counter's worry about selection for preference rather than health follows directly.