‘Synthetic Biology Is Closer Than You Think’
November 5th, 2012Via: Bloomberg:
George Church—he of the beard, tall man’s lope and overwhelming credentials—has hit the circuit to promote a new book: Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves.
…
Church figures it’s only a matter of time and proven safety before people start picking out traits for their offspring and cloning entire children. “Almost all technology in this area is banned until it works,” Church says. “In vitro fertilization was banned, and now it is immoral to deny an infertile couple their birthright to have a child produced by their bodies. At some point, someone will come up with an airtight argument as to why they should have a cloned child. At that point, cloning will be acceptable. At that point, people will already be choosing traits for their children. What politician will tell a parent that they can’t spend their hard-earned money on getting an extra 50 SAT points for their child as long as it’s safe?”
Can’t wait for Monsanto to get in on this act … they will be able to fully exploit this dupe. BTW, there is *no* right to have children. In fact, for debating purposes, there are no ‘rights’ at all. The rights you have are only the rights you can defend, the only ownership is also jsut what you can defend. The issue of ‘rights’ to this and ‘rights’ to that is the thin end of the Statist wedge…. We are not all equal, nor equally endowed with opportunity. Life sucks, get a helmet.
The amount of “rights” and/or “freedoms” that one has is inversely proportional to the proximity and number of other people.