The ethics of eugenics: on the human and the “post-human” possibilities (Nuffield Council on Bioethics)

In relation to the interests of the individuals directly involved, principally the prospective parents and their offspring, there are plausible circumstances in which heritable genome editing interventions could be morally acceptable, subject to appropriate protections of the welfare of the future person. Perhaps the most obvious of these circumstances, because they directly affect the welfare of the future person, are that risks of adverse outcomes for offspring and subsequent generations should have been assessed through relevant research. However, it is difficult, if not impossible, to be confident that all adverse outcomes have been identified or to assess their likelihood of occurrence with confidence before any actual clinical use (and before data are available from a great many clinical uses).

It is a common speculation in bioethical debates that the separation between the act of sexual intercourse and the objective of human procreation will become normalised, with the result that, in the distant future, much or even most human reproduction will be managed by specialist scientists, in order to secure the prospective parents’ preferred outcome. Visions like this extend the possibilities of freeing the genetic endowment of the next generation from the choice of reproductive partner first by broadening the choice of gametes (to include third-party donors) and second by enabling finer discriminations through embryo selection and finally cell and genome modification. Many writers have predicted that, whereas assisted reproduction has become normalised in many contemporary societies (where it was initially seen as monstrous, at least in the contemporary media), unassisted sexual reproduction may come to be seen as abnormal.