Can We Humanize Our Brave New World? 

Editors’ Note: This essay draws on material from the author’s book Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad (rights reverted) and has been substantially revised and updated for Public Discourse readers. 

Is it ethical to alter the genetic makeup of children? Should we create children with three parents? What about creating sperm from female stem cells to the end of creating a child with two biological mothers? Is it ethical to incubate a growing baby in an artificial womb? Could a womb like that end the perceived need for abortion?  

These questions might seem like science fiction, and indeed they were when Aldous Huxley, an agnostic, published his dystopian novel Brave New World nearly one hundred years ago. Huxley wove a fictitious world in which progeny were designed and grown in laboratories, children were raised by the state rather than in families, promiscuity was encouraged and monogamy considered grotesque, and the government endorsed self-medication with a “harmless” drug that kept its users in a placated state. 

Yet these are the questions up for debate in today’s public square, as evidenced by a recent debate hosted by The Free Press: “Is Designing Babies Unethical—Or a Moral Imperative?”  

All things considered, one has to wonder if Huxley wasn’t more a prophet than a novelist.  

Technological Dystopia 

The explosion of new technologies and applications is truly exciting, but with this exciting potential comes the responsibility to reflect on its meaning for the human community. We must refrain from rushing down an unexamined path. Medicine in general, and reproductive medicine in particular, are coming to be defined not as the restoration of human health, but as the optimization of human well-being. No longer are the goals of medicine strictly “medical.” Researchers pursue drugs for cognitive and physical enhancements that not only improve our functioning on the bell curve but seek to redefine the curve entirely.  

As we continue to expand the umbrella of medicine, we are slowly but surely redefining what it means to be human. We have reached an era in which we cannot afford the naiveté of believing that science and medicine are value-neutral; they will always be tools subject to the values of those who wield them. We can no longer afford to leave the morality of new technologies and procedures to the discernment of those fascinated by their possibility or to those who may reap economic or therapeutic benefits from them. These procedures increasingly shape not only the individuals who employ them, but future generations of humanity.  

The New(est) Eugenics 

Along with a postmodern decline in reverence for God has come a lost sense of the sanctity and dignity of the human person. How can that which is merely matter be sacred? How can we speak of “violating” the purely mechanical? As C. S. Lewis so presciently grasped, the attempt to wield ultimate control over the material aspects of nature has given us the impression that we both can and ought to control all aspects of our own nature: “The final stage is come when Man by eugenics, by pre-natal conditioning, and by an education and propaganda based on a perfect applied psychology, has obtained full control over himself. Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man.” The more we use technologies that give us access to control over who we are and what kinds of children we bear, the more we will exercise that control. It seems we can’t help ourselves. 

What’s left after we decide to employ these technologies is to decide how. Lewis recognized that the exercise of these technologies would eventually become an exercise of power over the weak: “What we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.” In our fervor to eliminate suffering, to improve ourselves—indeed, to purify ourselves—it is inevitable that the eugenic impulses of the early twentieth century are once again rising (if they ever truly left). American campaigns for mass sterilizations of the “unfit” (ranging from the mentally and physically disabled, to the criminally minded, to those who were merely the wrong race) faded into the background following the horrors of the Second World War.  

While the push for mass sterilizations has quieted, one eugenic tool has only increased in popularity and use: contraception has, from the outset, been employed for eugenic purposes. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, was an avid supporter of eugenics and wrote often of the potential of contraception to curb the growth of the black population. Since the early 1980s, doctors have employed amniocentesis and other prenatal testing techniques in conjunction with abortion to prevent the births of individuals with Down syndrome and other genetic conditions.  

We are on the brink of a return to more aggressive forms of eugenic control. British courts backed a mother’s decision to euthanize her twelve-year-old disabled daughter, and current legislation in Belgium and the Netherlands allows parents to euthanize their terminally ill children. Academics attempt to justify the practice of “post-birth abortion” (i.e., infanticide for children up to age two). The invention of the genetic editing technique CRISPR and the sequencing of the human genome in recent years have shifted “designer babies” from the category of science fiction to imminent reality. Genetically altered babies have already been born in China. Silicon Valley is playing host to myriad eugenics startups purporting to help couples select the most perfect of their embryos for IVF implantation—claims based on more than dubious science.

Once society removes God and human dignity from the equation, all that remains to adjudicate decisions on these matters is power. As Lewis comments, “If any one age really attains [as our age has], by eugenics and scientific education, the power to make its descendants what it pleases, all men who live after it are the patients of that power.” Who gets to decide which lives are worth protecting, and on what basis?  

The more we relegate weakness and vulnerability to the realm of the unacceptable, the less room there is for any form of imperfection. The fewer individuals there are in vulnerable situations, the less we as a community are alerted to their needs. In eliminating those populations who present with disabilities, we lessen our collective compassion. When we refuse to care for the vulnerable, we become less human, not more so. Each of us is born helpless (those of us who are lucky enough to be permitted to be born). If anything in us needs stamping out, it is not our weakness or dependence, but our tendency to despise such qualities to the point of destruction.  

Unintended Genetic Ramifications 

Playing with our genetics comes with unintended consequences. A negative consequence of widespread sperm donation and artificial insemination that is already manifesting is narrowed genetic selection for future generations. We have seen cases of hundreds of children being born of the same father. Too much genetic similarity in successive generations jeopardizes our biodiversity. Recognizing this risk, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) suggests limiting donors to twenty-five live births per population area of 800,000. 

Although we have the capability to map the human genome, we are far from understanding the intricate ways in which it works, as Lydia Dugdale argues in The Free Press debate. This is true of even basic characteristics; the same genotype can vary widely in its manifestations (phenotypes). It is even truer as we attempt to select for specific personality traits. Genetic “code” is a misnomer in that it is not as straightforward as computer code, where the language is precise and the relationship between input and output is clear. In the field of genetics, each gene is influenced not only by our environment (epigenetics), but also by the constellation of genes that together make up the code.  

When we select a certain characteristic, we also inadvertently choose the constellation of traits associated with it. It’s likely that some traits our society deems desirable are associated with other, less desirable traits. Imagine the “scatterbrained genius” or very assertive risk-taker. In one instance, a sperm donor for the “genius” sperm bank Zytec failed to disclose his schizophrenia at the time of his “donations.” The thirty-six sets of parents who selected his genes for their children did so because of his intelligence; they were not prepared for the risk of mental illness written into that same code.  

Even those without religious faith can recognize that when it comes to designing our progeny, “playing God” is playing with fire. Whether we see ourselves surrendering that power to natural selection, random chance, or God himself, we stand to fare far better taking an approach of humility. The realm of what we do not know necessarily remains inaccessible to us; no matter the degree of this territory that we manage to conquer, we will never know how much remains outside our domain. Tinkering with our genetics unleashes our laboratory experiments into the wild for all of humanity to become the test field. It will not matter who has opted “in” when none of us has the choice to opt “out.”  

Coming Soon: Mechanical Wombs, Artificial Gametes, and Cloning 

As we explore continually emerging technologies, it is imperative that we stop and consider the social as well as medical implications of their use. We cannot intervene in the human body without touching the human person; the manipulation of our bodies alters our relationships and restructures how we function as a society. Among these emerging technologies are artificial wombs, to which thinkers have attributed the potential ability both to end abortion (by allowing the transfer of fetuses from wombs where they are not welcome into waiting incubators) and to become the means of creating the baby factories of Huxley’s repugnant new world.  

How should we navigate the use of mechanical uteruses? On one hand, how wonderful it would be to extend our existing technology to support prematurely born infants by moving viability to as young an age as possible. On the other hand, it is arrogant to assume that we can replicate with mechanical parts all the essential aspects of the physical care of a mother’s womb. Evidence regarding the effects of physical touch and reading aloud to infants suggests that these human interactions have huge impacts on their development. Such interactions probably have a similarly powerful impact before birth. We don’t fully understand the effects of a mother’s voice, touch, and hormones on a prenatal infant’s body and mind. Will we truly subject future human beings to this kind of radical experimentation in order to find out?  

Another way researchers are seeking to control reproduction is through the creation of artificial gametes. Adult stem cells from female mice can be coaxed into becoming sperm and used to fertilize an egg, resulting in mice created using artificial gametes. Researchers have also successfully produced human sperm and eggs. It is only a matter of time and funding before these artificial gametes are employed in the production of a live human embryo.  

Theoretically, this means that an embryo could eventually be conceived as the genetic child of two women. This has implications for same-sex couples, who until now have had to make use of donor gametes to reproduce. The conversation is already framed in terms of rights, the right to reproduce being the assumed basis for same-sex couples to pursue IVF. Should we allow this? Are we willing to further dispense with the unique contributions of fatherhood or motherhood to the well-being of our children to satisfy the desires of the parents who will raise them?  

What do we make of our ability to create children with three (or more) parents, editing out defective DNA and introducing additional genetic parents? May we reproduce via cloning? We have the technology; researchers have successfully created cloned embryos from both embryos and living adults (although no attempt has yet been made to gestate or birth human clones). The technique opens up a whole range of questions: may we clone whomever we wish? If someone wanted to raise a child genetically identical to, say, Kobe Bryant or Britney Spears, who should determine whether he had the right to do so? May we create a clone of a sick child to provide genetically identical organs?  

The Best of Being Human 

These are not scientific or medical questions. These technologies and procedures raise ethical and relational questions that force us to examine our previously held notions of who we are as human beings. Some argue that these manipulations are simply the next step in our evolution. Yet among the greatest of our current capabilities is the ability to reason. We can reflect and deliberate and make choices. Whatever capabilities we might be able to manage to manufacture into ourselves, we must have the humility to acknowledge that there is no way we can know in advance what effects our tampering will have. As Dugdale and Carter Snead argued in The Free Press debate, we are, voluntarily or not, becoming the subjects of a population-wide research project, the results of which will span generations.  

The technologies may be new, but they have us circling back to revisit ancient questions: what does it mean to be human? What is the good life? What do we owe one another? In many ways, these ends we are pursuing, remarkable feats of scientific achievement as they may be, represent the easy way out. Just as the fitness industry capitalizes on our unwillingness to put in the effort required to achieve hard goals, so too will industries use these new technologies to offer the promise of making us “better.” But are these goals—perfect health, enhanced intelligence, unsurpassed talent—ends truly worth pursuing? Does individual transhuman capability really represent what is powerfully compelling about the human spirit? Do these interventions make us more loving or virtuous? What good will it do us to gain the world if it comes at the cost of our souls?  

As we imagine making ourselves and society “better,” we need to conceive not of an earthly perfection, but of a glorified one. Compassion, after all, means suffering with another, and all real love requires sacrifice. If we aim for the elimination of suffering and the creation of invulnerable beings, what chance does such a society stand of learning to rely on one another and patiently bear wrongs? In a population of specimens with homogeneously high IQs and perfect health, how many will develop the heart of St. Teresa? Much more likely is an outcome in which every man becomes an island in a vast sea of isolation.  

It was Christian ideals that humanized pagan antiquity, in which Romans dashed malformed infants on the rocks or left them to die of exposure. From the seed of the imago Dei in the Hebrew Scriptures sprang the Christian philosophy of the radical equality of persons that forms the bedrock of our free society. As we revert to a pagan worship of idols—sex, money, and power—we need a revival of Christian ideals to humanize our burgeoning control over our own design.  

The best of us will not be found by narrowing and selecting specific capabilities. The elimination of suffering will not produce joy. If we seek to be truly free, we must acknowledge our responsibilities to one another. We will flourish to the extent that we all can flourish. 

Image licensed via Adobe Stock.