The costly appliance of science

[mawilson 2,133]

The costly appliance of science

Genetic selection has some alarming implications - and could widen the

wealth gap beyond repair.

September 19, 2006 09:48 AM

by Peter Singer

The advance of knowledge is often a mixed blessing. Over the past 60 years,

nuclear physics has been one obvious example of this truth. Over the next

60 years, genetics may be another.

Today, enterprising firms offer, for a fee, to tell you about your genes. They

claim that this knowledge will help you live longer and better. You might, for

example, have extra checkups to detect early signs of the diseases that you

are most at risk of contracting, or you could alter your diet to reduce that risk.

If your chances of a long lifespan are not good, you might buy more life

insurance, or even retire early to have enough time to do what you always

wanted to do.

Defenders of privacy have worked, with some success, to prevent insurance

companies from requiring genetic testing before issuing life insurance. But if

individuals can do tests from which insurance companies are barred, and if

those who receive adverse genetic information then buy additional life

insurance without disclosing the tests that they have taken, they are cheating

other holders of life insurance. Premiums will have to increase to cover the

losses, and those with a good genetic prognosis may opt out of life insurance

to avoid subsidising the cheats, driving premiums higher still.

We need not become too alarmed yet. The United States government

accountability office sent identical genetic samples to several of the testing

companies, and got widely varying, and mostly useless, advice. But as the

science improves, the insurance problem will have to be faced.

Selecting our children raises more profound ethical problems. This is not new.

In developed countries, the routine testing of older pregnant women,

combined with the availability of abortion, has significantly reduced the

incidence of conditions such as Down's syndrome. In some regions of India

and China where couples are anxious to have a son, selective abortion has

been the ultimate form of sexism, and has been practised to such an extent

that a generation is coming of age in which males face a shortage of female

partners.

Selection of children need not involve abortion. For several years, some

couples at risk of passing a genetic disease on to their children have used

in vitro fertilisation, producing several embryos that can be tested for the

faulty gene and implanting in the woman's uterus only those without it. Now

couples are using this technique to avoid passing on genes that imply a

significantly elevated risk of developing certain forms of cancer.

Since everyone carries some adverse genes, there is no clear line between

selecting against a child with above-average risks of contracting a disease

and selecting for a child with unusually rosy health prospects. Thus, genetic

selection will inevitably move towards genetic enhancement.

For many parents, nothing is more important than giving their child the best

possible start in life. They buy expensive toys to maximise their child's learning

potential and spend much more on private schools or after-school tutoring in

the hope that he or she will excel in the tests that determine entry to elite

universities. It may not be long before we can identify genes that improve

the odds of success in this quest.

Many will condemn this as a resurgence of "eugenics", the view, especially

popular in the early 20th century, that hereditary traits should be improved

through active intervention. So it is, in a way, and in the hands of authoritarian

regimes, genetic selection could resemble the evils of earlier forms of eugenics,

with their advocacy of odious, pseudoscientific official policies, particularly

concerning "racial hygiene".

In liberal, market-driven societies, however, eugenics will not be coercively

imposed by the state for the collective good. Instead, it will be the outcome

of parental choice and the workings of the free market. If it leads to healthier,

smarter people with better problem-solving abilities, that will be a good thing.

But even if parents make choices that are good for their children, there could

be perils as well as blessings.

In the case of sex selection, it is easy to see that couples who independently

choose the best for their own child can produce an outcome that makes all

their children worse off than they would have been if no one could select the

sex of their child. Something similar could happen with other forms of genetic

selection. Since above-average height correlates with above-average income,

and there is clearly a genetic component to height, it is not fanciful to imagine

couples choosing to have taller children. The outcome could be a genetic

"arms race" that leads to taller and taller children, with significant environmental

costs in the additional consumption required to fuel larger human beings.

The most alarming implication of this mode of genetic selection, however, is

that only the rich will be able to afford it. The gap between rich and poor, already

a challenge to our ideas of social justice, will become a chasm that mere equality

of opportunity will be powerless to bridge. That is not a future that any of us

should approve.

But avoiding this outcome will not be easy, for it will require that selection for

genetic enhancement is either available to no one or accessible to everyone.

The first option would require coercion, and - since countries will not accept that

others should gain a competitive edge - an international agreement to forego the

benefits that genetic enhancement can bring. The second option, universal access,

would require an unprecedented level of social assistance for the poor, and

extraordinarily difficult decisions about what to subsidise.

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