The UK may now permit embryo screening for sex selection. China and India have legal and illegal sex selection already, leading to a wide imbalance of males over females. Other biotechnologists propose screening out embryos who might get cancer in their adult lives. Increasingly, child bearing is becoming solipsistic, where the child is conceived to satisfy the needs and wants of the parents, rather than about receiving fulfillment through unconditional love and acceptance of the child we receive.
We are at the beginning of a new eugenics in which some of us now presume to act on the belief that we are entitled to have not just a child but “the right child.” The next step is clearly genetic engineering when the technology permits. All of this is part of the increasing attack on the idea that human life has equal intrinsic moral worth simply because it is human.