Arthur Caplan Quotes

Renegade scientists and totalitarian loonies are not the folks most likely to abuse genetic engineering. You and I are--not because we are bad but because we want to do good. In a world dominated by competition, parents understandably want to give their kids every advantage. ... The most likely way for eugenics to enter into our lives is through the front door as nervous parents ... will fall over one another to be first to give Junior a better set of genes.

Individual wishes are driving the possible emergence of eugenics, not the state, because people want children for whom they can be ambitious.

No one really has the guts to say it, but if we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we?

Soon it will be a sin of parents to have a child that carries the heavy burden of genetic disease. We are entering a world where we have to consider the quality of our children.

No one may have the guts to say this, but if we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we?

In the 1920s and 1930s, scientists from both the political left and right would not have found the idea of designer babies particularly dangerous - though, of course, they would not have used that phrase.

Cloning represents a very clear, powerful, and immediate example in which we are in danger of turning procreation into manufacture.

Our increasing ability to alter our biology and open up the processes of life is now fueling a new cultural war.

Man has no right to claim the role of the creator of his likes or to choose their genetic prototypes, thus determining their personal characteristics .

Genetic engineering of are own species is not a question of if, but only a question of when….The human race may bifurcate into two subspecies of humans: Enhanced and Unenhanced.

Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring

If we did find that (most) mathematically gifted people possessed a special gene, would implanting such a gene in our children ever be justified? If certain traits are objectively superior to others, should we not promote active potentials to acquire such traits? The difficulty in answering this question lies in the fact that we live in a pluralist society. If people were to disagree about the ranking of certain characteristics, how would we decide which ranking is the correct one? It may be true that some characteristics are objectively superior to others (or better before God). And it may be true that many people would be capable of picking out a few such superior qualities. But who is to be appointed supreme judge?

This is a matter far too important to be left solely in the hands of the scientific and medical communities. The belief that surrogate mothers and clonal babies are inevitable because science always moves forward, an attitude expressed to me recently by a scientific colleague, represents a form of laissez-faire nonsense dismally reminiscent of the creed that American business, if left to itself, will solve everybody's problems. Just as the success of a corporate body in making money need not set the human condition ahead, neither does every scientific advance automatically make our lives more 'meaningful.' No doubt the person whose experimental skill will eventually bring forth a clonal baby will be given wide notoriety. But the child who grows up knowing that the world wants another Picasso may view his creator in a different light.

Is it more ethical to edit embryos or to screen a lot of embryos and throw them away? I don't know the answer.

We must address, individually and collectively, moral and ethical issues raised by cutting-edge research in artificial intelligence and biotechnology, which will enable significant life extension, designer babies, and memory extraction.

There is a lot of hype and fear about this much-talked-about prospect of designer babies.

Soon it will be a sin of parents to have a child that carries the heavy burden of genetic disease. We are entering a world where we have to consider the quality of our children.

We recognized in 1996 that, with progress in the field of genetics accelerating at a breathtaking pace, we need to ensure that advances in treatment and prevention of disease do not constitute a new basis for discrimination.

Can we develop so sound and extensive a genetics that we can hope to breed, in the future, superior men?

The Human Genome Project alone is the Full Employment Act for bioethicists.

Banning human cloning reflects our humanity. It is the right thing to do. Creating a child through this new method calls into question our most fundamental beliefs. It has the potential to threaten the sacred family bonds at the very core of our ideals and our society. At its worst, it could lead to misguided and malevolent attempts to select certain traits, even to create certain kind of children -- to make our children objects rather than cherished individuals.

It's inevitable that we'll have some form of designer children, fueled not just by the science but by parents' hard-wired desire to give their children every advantage.

Many families would like to avoid burdening future generations with inherited diseases such as haemophilia or severe developmental disorders. But most would think it wrong to edit the genes that influence the 'normal' range of human variation, from eye colour to intelligence or athletic ability.

Personally, I don't think it is acceptable to manipulate the human germline for the purpose of changing some genetic traits that will be transmitted over generations.

Or why it is acceptable to train fast runners and high jumpers but not to breed them. I can think of some answers, and they are good ones, which would probably end up persuading me. But hasn't the time come when we should stop being frightened even to put the question?