The internet took a dystopian turn recently when Ross Douthat of the New York Times sat down for a podcast episode with Noor Siddiqui, the head of Orchid, the world’s first whole-genome embryo screener.
With a creepy nonchalance, Siddiqui claimed that it is “stewardship” and “responsible” parenting to edit out the possibility of serious health risk in offspring. This would be done via technology that would identify the embryos that could be potentially problematic, as well as those that are of “prime” quality. Siddiqui’s pitch uses euphemistic language to make the technology sound life-affirming, obfuscating what’s actually happening.
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