杏吧原创

LEGEND has it that when Nobel laureate James Watson was raising money for
human genetics research in the 1980s, he would tousle his hair and untie his
shoelaces to create the image of the brilliant but distracted professor.

It is a good job Watson is no longer the first tsar of American genome
research because his latest remarks on abortion and genetics don鈥檛 exactly
square with that genial image.

In interviews in British newspapers, Watson has said that women should be
allowed to take advantage of any advances in genetic technology鈥攅ven if
that means aborting fetuses to select their genetic characteristics. In other
words, if tomorrow鈥檚 parents want to use prenatal tests to select, say, for
musical aptitude and against homosexuality, let them.

From a lesser figure, such views would be dismissed as shallow and naive. But
Watson of all people must have thought the issues through. Why has he decided
there is nothing wrong with the idea of designer babies?

Watson is not simply indulging a mischievous passion for political
incorrectness. Shocking as his views seem they actually make a kind of perverse
sense when you apply strict materialist logic to them. Parents invest heavily in
their children, so why shouldn鈥檛 they be allowed to skew their genetic
characteristics? And besides, the boundaries between what are considered
鈥渄iseases鈥� and what are considered 鈥渢raits鈥� are constantly shifting. Only in the
1960s, for example, was homosexuality removed from psychiatrists鈥� lists of
鈥渋llnesses鈥�. How, then, can anyone draw long-lasting and logical lines between
the kinds of genes that should and shouldn鈥檛 be tested for in the womb? Watson鈥檚
answer is that we can鈥檛, so parents must be left to decide what they want from
genetic technology.

This position is not offensive. But it is flawed. Most right-minded people
probably could agree about the kinds of things that ought to be screened for in
prenatal tests鈥攁nd sexuality wouldn鈥檛 be one of them. What鈥檚 more, it is
precisely because the boundaries between what is considered desirable and
undesirable in a human being are fuzzy and fickle that we need firm rules on
genetic screening.

The alternative is as surreal as it is scary. Successive generations of
designer babies could end up reflecting the whims of their parents鈥� era
(although one suspects there would always be a preponderance of skinny,
right-handed heterosexuals).

A deeper objection is that Watson鈥檚 logic is based on a coldly consumerist
view of parenting. Yes, individual children may 鈥渂elong鈥� to individual parents
in a narrow sense of the word. But everyone has a stake in their biological
future and the society these children will create.

Follow Watson鈥檚 logic and we will all end up the poorer. Who knows, we may
even get round to eliminating the genes that predispose some people to become
immodest materialists with a penchant for speaking their minds.