
Julian Savulescu on Designer Babies (originally on Bioethics Bites)
Philosophy Bites
The Liberal Position on Genetic Inequality
I think you're correct that this could go wrong in lots of different ways but it's important to recognise that the biological starting point is extreme genetic inequality. We should be free to engage in natural reproduction without any genetic selection and we should also be respected in those decisions. People should have freedom of reproduction, freedom not only to decide how many children to have or when to have children but what kind of children to have. Sometimes people make decisions that we disagree with or indeed are that are wrong but we should respect those unless they directly harm a child. This is a different category of decision that we can grant much more freedom to than we would typically give to parents when we're hearing their children.