Genetically modifying babies is a form of reproductive assistance

The argument

The argument places genetic modification within an existing category rather than treating it as a new kind of intervention. That category is assisted reproductive technology, and the relevant fact about it is how ordinary it has become. In the modern age, assisted reproductive technology has become less taboo: a third of U.S. adults have used or know someone who has used fertility treatments. A technology at that level of penetration is no longer experimental or marginal. It is part of how a substantial share of families come into being, and the objections once raised against it have largely not survived contact with the people it helped. The comparison then does the work. Fertility treatment is accepted because of what it is for. It exists to let people have children who could not otherwise have them, and it achieves this through technical intervention in reproduction, in a clinic, producing outcomes that would not have occurred unaided. Each of those features was once the basis of an objection, and each was set aside once the purpose was understood. Genetic modification, proponents argue, shares that purpose and that structure. It is another technical intervention in reproduction, undertaken for the same reason: to give couples who would otherwise be unable to have a healthy child the opportunity to do so. If the acceptance of fertility treatment rests on the goal rather than on the particular technique, then consistency requires extending that acceptance to a technique pursuing the same goal. Because the genetic modification of babies should be considered like these treatments, as an opportunity for more couples to have children, proponents conclude that it should be legal.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The scientific community should not consider genetic modification as just another reproductive measure. Although other forms of reproductive assistance are common, genetic modification carries unique risks. The procedure involves restructuring genes in dramatic ways, unlike other reproductive assistance measures. Genetic modification could harm the mother and child in grievous ways, making it necessary to avoid.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] The argument assumes that genetic modification of babies is identical to other forms of reproductive assistance.