The practice could enhance future generations

The argument

The argument is that the genetic modification of babies could lead to the improvement of future generations, and that this possibility is itself a reason to permit the practice rather than to foreclose it. The clearest application is the prevention of inherited disease. With this procedure, scientists could prevent children from inheriting debilitating illnesses, which means preventing not a particular person's suffering after the fact but the condition arising at all. A society in which those illnesses are not transmitted is a society with less suffering in it, and the reduction is permanent in a way that treatment is not, since what is not passed on does not have to be treated again in each successive generation. Beyond prevention, proponents argue, lies enhancement. The procedure could make future generations smarter, stronger and less vulnerable than they would otherwise have been. The significance of this is not confined to the individuals concerned. People who are healthier and more capable are better placed to do things that benefit others, so these genetically modified individuals could contribute to the common good in extraordinary ways, and the gain compounds outward rather than stopping with the person modified. The final step concerns the cost of refusing. Keeping genetic modification taboo is not a neutral position that preserves the status quo while the question is considered; it is a decision with consequences, and the consequences fall on people who do not yet exist. If the practice remains taboo, we will decrease the possibility of future generations benefiting from an improved quality of life: the illnesses that could have been prevented are instead inherited, and the capacities that could have been added are not. Because the practice could enhance future generations in these ways, on this view genetically modifying babies should be legal.

Premises

Counter-arguments

We cannot claim that genetic modification will serve the common good with certainty. Since the procedure is untested, it carries an equal risk of giving future generations serious problems.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The argument assumes that genetic modification's future achievements will outweigh the potential safety risks of testing the procedure.