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Genetically Engineering Babies a Moral Obligation, Says Ethicist
Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that Oxford Professor Julian Savulescu, an expert in practical ethics, says that creating so-called designer babies could be considered a 'moral obligation' as it makes them grow up into 'ethically better children' and that we should actively give parents the choice to screen out personality flaws in their children such as potential alcoholism, psychopathy and disposition to violence as it means they will then be less likely to harm themselves and others. 'Surely trying to ensure that your children have the best, or a good enough, opportunity for a great life is responsible parenting?' writes Savulescu, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Ethics. 'So where genetic selection aims to bring out a trait that clearly benefits an individual and society, we should allow parents the choice. To do otherwise is to consign those who come after us to the ball and chain of our squeamishness and irrationality.' Savulescu says that we already routinely screen embryos and fetuses for conditions such as cystic fibrosis and Down's syndrome and couples can test embryos for inherited bowel and breast cancer genes. 'Whether we like it or not, the future of humanity is in our hands now. Rather than fearing genetics, we should embrace it. We can do better than chance.'"
without alcohol's input?
But where do diseases end, where does aesthetics start? Who enforces that line for the rich? Clearly this guy hasn't seen enough dystopian movies about two-class societies emerging from genetics.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
All those things we perceive as flaws today may be the "mutation" that allows the human race to survive after something cataclysmic happens. Seems kind of selfish to pick and choose.
So in the future I should have super docile, conformist babies that fit the cookie cutter notion of how a baby should look? No thanks, I'll just stick with chance.
I'm not even going to bother with the obligatory "what could possibly go wrong", because this is so bat-shit crazy and irresponsible. We simply do not understand how personalities work and how traits interact - to even suggest that we start removing traits before we understand how whole works is just as stupid as suggesting we amputate everyone's left hand to make sure everyone is right handed and not 'sinister'.
If someone could make a baby that wouldn't cry and would sleep all night, then I'll buy one.
My wife worked for a pediatrician in a well to do area a couple of years ago and if it looked like their kid was going to be under 6 foot, they would ask for a referral to an endocrinologist for hormones to get the kid to grow a bit more. The pediatrician didn't think it was necessary in most cases, but they are his patients so he complied. The parents wanted the best for their kids and wanted to insure that they could get any advantage that they could possibly get for them.
James Watson, co-discover of DNA, was on the National Press Club a few years ago, and this question was asked (can't find the archive right now - heard on NPR). Anyway to paraphrase,
90% of CEOs are over 6 foot. A 5 foot 2 inch tall man and a five foot tall woman may want to better the opportunities for their child.
Of course, what he meant was that up to a point, height matters in all sorts of endeavors and not only sports: politics, finding a mate, work, etc ... There is a strong correlation between height and success. Yes, I know - queue up all the exceptions but keep in mind, many of those were extraordinary people; such as Einstein - 5' 5".
Its always the same thing withe busybodies and totalitarians: Anything that is not forbidden is mandatory.
Here's an alternate ethic: Leave us alone. We'll make our own choices.
We have five different genetic conditions in our family, some are considered diseases, others are considered disabilities. I am quite sure under these new "ethics", myself and my whole family would be on the top of the list for instant abortion. Yet despite all medical conditions, many of my family have lived very long and productive lives. In same cases, I consider my relatives and ancestors choice and will to fight and overcome the odds stacked against them something to inspire me to never feel sorry for myself. Would we ever see such a thing in a future where all babies were born "perfect"? I think the sense of entitlement we see in our society is already overwhelming as it is, and i find it's people who overcome their disabilites that throw cold water, figuratively speaking, in the fact of self indulgence and entitlement. Would we see that this 'ethical" future?
My other point, this whole issue reminds of of that famous line from near the end of the movie "The Third Man", where the character Harry Lime says:
"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed—but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
In a world full of "perfect babies", well, just saying.
He's STILL talking eugenics.
Even taking out the racial connotations and stating you're looking at it from a more "humane" angle is STILL going to raise hackles.
Also, genetics has been getting studied for under a century. While YES, we know a LOT about the human genome, there's still a lot we don't know. Such as WHY some of these diseases and behaviors are in our genetic code in the first place. Yet people want to start selecting away from it, or better still, excising it from our genetic code?
They're essentially playing with fire, and the nearest bucket of water is someplace in the vicinity of Alpha Centauri.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The question is only when we start to be open about it and try to influence the genetic composition of our kids more directly,
You know it's time for the next revolution when your rulers' names end with roman numerals.
Think about it: If you genetically engineer a baby, you've inserted non-natural genes, that is, inventions you can patent. So after the babies grow up, those people cannot have children without paying you for licensing (at the time the general public notices it, many years later, it's already too late). Maybe they'll even insert terminator genes, so that you cannot any more have offspring the normal way, unless you buy a (very expensive) special "medicine" which re-activates the genes needed for production (but only as long as you take it).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
O brave new world
that has such people in't.
didn't the Nazis try this a few years back ??
Yes, right. And the idea has been demonized since, mainly to justify a war which was waged to bring the US economy out of recession and suppress the two most potent economic competitors. When we outgrow the propaganda from that time, we might get a clearer look on that issue.
You know it's time for the next revolution when your rulers' names end with roman numerals.
And they might not. They may just be flaws.
Sometimes something that appears bad is bad.
I'm more concerned that the individuals who will be able to afford this genetic engineering will be the last people we want to become supermen. I don't have that much faith in our economic elite.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This sounds like an incredibly great idea, that I'm sure will have no down sides.
I mean, if we weed out violence, that can only be a good thing. Nice docile people who won't put up any kind of fight. What could go wrong with that?
Also, aren't mental illness and creativity linked?
https://www.google.com/search?q=creativity+mental+illness
So if you weed out schizophrenia, for example, to create a superior being.. you could simply be creating non-creative people, who will never invent anything new.
Honestly, we don't understand the human mind and how it works... how can we choose what human attributes are safe to discard?
Can we stop pretending that "a guy said something" is news? Who cares if some shmuck has an opinion? It might as well be me saying the same thing, or the opposite, for all it matters.
Screening out harmful genes is not genetic engineering. Genetic engineering is splicing, or mutating genes. What he is talking about is just a selection process.
Does anyone really think it's a bad idea to screen out the gene for Huntingtons? There's absolutely no reason any child today has to be born with Huntingtons, an incredibly miserable way to die as a chile. I'd say that screening for Huntingtons is such a serious moral obligation, that failing to do so should be criminal.
If that's OK, it's just a discussion of how much selection we should be doing, not whether we do it. Actual genetic engineering is a whole different story.
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This proposal has horrible intrinsic moral problems. And think about the societal consequences.
Parents with a good moral sense would not engineer their babies.
However, selfish and immoral parents would do it. Thus they could create a strong, intelligent, long-lived baby, who they would raise in an environment of selfishness and immorality.
Rinse and repeat. After a few generations, you have divided society in two classes: one upper, dominating class consisting of strong, intelligent, but selfish and immoral beings (who would no longer be even _humans_), and one lower class consisting of naturals.
This is a freaking dystopia.
The scary part is that this gentleman is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Ethics! I fear for the future.
Tell that to the banana, or household dog.
It is even worse that that. We would be selecting for selfishness. See
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3056849&cid=41035551
This would be an unprecedented dystopia.
You mean the Cavendish banana, that repeatedly comes under fungal and viral attack, that it can't defend itself from due to its lack of genetic diversity? Or the relentlessly inbred pedigree breeds that have defects in their breathing, walking or vision? Genetic engineering is and will be capable of wonders, but we shouldn't blind ourselves to the dangers.
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Every topic about any subject with potential for abuse is about the rich (though not solely so, of course.) The rich are the people in power. Those with power decide how any technology will be used. Everything is a double-edged sword, and the question "How will those who hold the largest double-edged swords use them?" is always entirely valid. Indeed, it must be asked.
I hope this helps you understand why "we turn any slashdot topic into an anti-rich diatribe", which is - of course - a complete mischaracterization of the nature of the discussion.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
What makes anyone think we can actually identify all the interrelated effects of any gene - especially ones that affect the brain?
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The position of CEO selects FOR psychopathy. "Bad" traits like lack of empathy, lying and cheating are really just those traits that benefit the individual over society. "Good" traits are the traits that benefit the group. This guy isn't doing it for the individual children. He wants to be protected from your individual children. He's doing it for him.
So the summary mentions cystic fibrosis. This is a perfect example. If you get 2 copies of the gene, you get a terrible condition and would (without modern treatment) probably die in you 20's. However, a single copy of the gene offers advantages over not having it at all.
The problem is that humans actually have very little understanding of how the body works and should not meddle in genetics on a large scale. Even in a case where we know a specific condition (2 copies of the CFTR gene) is bad, we should not try to eliminate that gene from the gene pool. I would agree that not producing babies with 2 copies is *probably* a good thing, but people have a tendency to generalize and go too far. Evolution - if left to function - would probably find a way to convey the benefits of this gene without the downside eventually.
There have also been recent drug trials where the substance in question had the opposite effect from what was intended. The immediate effect was correct, but the expected response in the body was wrong. We have a long way to go both scientifically and socially before such things may be considered a good idea.
Moral relativism is absurd. If all morality is relative, then moral relativism is itself relative and therefore non-binding.
Also, moral relativists are huge hypocrites. They claim moral relativism when we are discussing something that they like (such as prostitution), but when we discuss something they do not like (such as deforestation, or nuclear energy), then they are all for absolute morality.
creating so-called designer babies could be considered a 'moral obligation' as it makes them grow up into 'ethically better children'
Ethics is a matter of opinion and are not universal. Diversity is key to survival. Don't go the way of the Borg.
screen out personality flaws in their children such as potential alcoholism, psychopathy and disposition to violence as it means they will then be less likely to harm themselves and others.
Bummer about accidentally weeding out creativity and genius in the process. That professor has a lot to learn from the factory farming industry that made all sorts of mistakes with breeding in pigs, cattle and poultry, accidentally creating inferior genetic lines and losing important behavioral traits. We don't know enough to start messing with 'designer' babies.
This falls in the really, really, really bad idea category as in, the late humanity that bred itself to extinction.
After only 65 years, we seem to have forgotten everything.
Genetic engineering is different from what you describe, for multiple reasons. One reason is that what you describe is not transmitted to the child's offspring, so it is less likely to result in a separated and immensely powerful upper class. See http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3056849&cid=41035551
Has this ethicist seen it?
Treat whatever disease the woman has that makes the pregnancy risky. One solution of last resort would be to induce early labor, with all care to maximize the baby's chance of survival.
And this is a rhetoric question anyway, because these things are _extremely_ rare.
didn't the Nazis try this a few years back ??
Yours is a rather simplistic response that is likely to be easily shot down by this ethicist guy, but it highlights an important point.
Arguments in favor of eugenics have always been made on the basis of the idea that the people we select for will be superior. They will be stronger, taller, able to run faster, able to throw a discus with more accuracy, they will be smarter ... they will be more BLONDE!
So this guy, an ethicist, comes along and says -- because it's his speciality -- that if we breed humans properly we can make ones that are more ethical.
Logic demands that we ask, "So what?" What is the difference between breeding babies that are more ethical and breeding ones that look more like Dolph Lundgren? We have decided that one goal is abhorrent. Why is the other goal not so?
Through the lens of logic, this guy is just a eugenicist. His being an ethicist matters no more or less than him having any other job, as far as the validity of his argument goes.
Breakfast served all day!
I completely agree, we don't yet have nearly the understanding to start meddling with our genome on a large scale. Not that that will stop us.
The problem with evolution though is that by virtually eliminating death by other than "old age" we've largely eliminated one of the driving forces behind evolution - survival of the fittest. The driving force now is simply who makes the most babies (i.e. the fittest in the new reality). So basically if we want to select for anything other than "breeders" we're going to have to do it ourselves, either by genetic engineering or reproductive control regulations. So three bad choices to wind our way between...
Even if evolution was still working it is unlikely to magically find a "solution" to trade-offs, at least not on any timescale were we'd care. Take sickle-cell anemia as a recessive disease with clear benefits - if you only have one copy of the gene you're immune to malaria, a major advantage in tropical locales without access to modern medicine. If the gene is prevalent enough in the population then *eventually*, maybe, another random mutation will occur that counteracts the anemia problem - but it will probably incur a cost of it's own. If the cost/benefit ratio plays out well then it will disperse through the population as well, if not...
Basically "magic bullet" solutions will pretty much require intelligent intervention, and we'll probably eventually be able to start meddling on that level. In the meantime, our meddling is unlikely to be much worse than nature's "let's fuck with stuff and see what works". Except for the interaction with social inequities of course.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Hardly anything's that simple in genetics. We already know that the genes for red hair also tend to produce freckles, and it turns out it apparently affects pain response in the skin, too. Everything's interrelated.
The proposal is to select for genes affecting personality, though. How complicated can we expect gene effects to be in the brain? Nasty mazes of interrelated and overlapping effects. A gene that might produce alcoholism in some people might produce a great artist or adventurer or scientist when combined with different genes. We just are not informed enough yet to be making such calls.
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"We always know best, and what is for the best."
"Our intellect is capable of producing a better world on its own, if given sufficient technology."
"It is immoral not to condition our babies to accept whole-hardheartedly, their statistically inevitable circumstance in life."
Thank Ford, Huxley's vision of a moral paradise is nigh.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
And always remember: Right handed guys never hold it with their left.
Have gnu, will travel.
Evolution - if left to function - would probably find a way to convey the benefits of this gene without the downside eventually.
Evolution has already found the solution: Let those with only one mutated allel of CFTR enjoy the advantages, and if those with two mutated copies develop cystic fibrosis, so what? The mutated version has already benefitted enough others, so it's not a big deal for the species.
The problem with "lets have Evolution do the work" is that Evolution is not ethical, and Evolution doesn't care for the individual, when it benefits the whole species. We humans care for individuals, mainly if we ourself are the said individual, to a lesser grade if it is a close relative.
And that's my gripe with the concept of ethical gene mutation.
It will make us either uniform: It's risky to be an outsider in the society, and most parents don't want their children to become outsiders. So they will basicly choose the gene makeup à la mode, whatever is in vogue when they get pregnant. You will be able to determine the age of anybody just by looking at their genetic code, because most people will closely match the type that was preferred during the times of their embryonic phase, the same way you can determine the construction time of a car by looking at the typical design and technical features.
Or it will split the species Homo sapiens sapiens into subspecies as envisioned by Aldous Huxley. The parents (with more or less obvious pressure by the society as a whole) will choose the genetic makeup of their children depending on their planned future place in life. We get a genetic elite, modified to be fit for the ruling class, we get several ranks of drone classes, fit for their jobs, but without any chance or ability to become someone else.
In both cases, we will rob future individuals of their right to be individuals. They will be streamlined and optimized for what the parents (with helpful input of the society) considers best, and differently than us, who had the chance to get out of the predetermined life concepts our parents envisioned for us, will be less and less able to become actually individuums.
You're talking about something different from the OP.
I would first find fault with the designation of "designer" humans. Are in vitro fertilized embryos "designer"? After all, these are people which shouldn't exist, their parents are empirically incapable of conceiving children, an intervention has occurred (which kills several fertilized embryos in the process) in order to conceive a child, because of the parents' belief that they are incomplete without children -- it is their wish, their sensibility, their purchase, and not their right or their nature. The child is a plan, a consumer product, alas, only available to the relatively wealthy.
Further, places much less well off than rich US medical clinics already offer "designer" humans, in China and India it's common for mothers to simply cull their female zygotes, they abort them. This is plainly an evil thing, it's bad practically and bad morally. But, how do you prevent it? What steps are you willing to go to to prevent the abortion of "undesirable" zygotes? You can ban abortion, but that only bans it for people that can't buy a plane ticket or have access to "discrete" services, and a lot of people believe they have a right to have abortions. The government could examine all expectant mothers and license abortions, forbidding ones that meet their politically-correct standard of "by design." Of course, that designation is up for debate, and something like malaria susceptibility might or might not be defect dependent on local conditions, the "luck" of such a trait given their parents genotype.
And then, we're not just talking about giving people glowing ears or racing stripes, we're also talking about making sure they'll never contract HIV, or the plague, or congenital blindness. What do you tell someone who's born with an abnormality? "Sorry, but our advanced moral consciousness demands that you be born blind, because it would be a violation of human dignity for you not to be"? Why are genotypic changes such a big deal, but phenotypic modifications, like vaccines, not a "violation of human dignity"? Is it a violation of human dignity that I'm immune to measles, because I grew up rich and white in the western world, while a billion Africans are not?
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I wouldn't call his argument a straw man argument. You just happened to thoughtlessly pick two of the worst examples possible for claiming that our influence on the progression of species is beneficial. It's your own fault for doing so.
Yes, there are plenty of examples of breeding done right. You should have cited one of those. Instead, you picked the banana, apparently without realizing that the variety most of the Western world is familiar with is said by many experts to be on the verge of collapse due to biological issues. Likewise, you picked dogs, which have been overbred to the point of ridiculousness in many cases.
Why you chose to pick those two examples is beyond me, when you could have easily cited any number of different fruits, hybrids, or other species that we've bred throughout the millennia.
Not only that, but you responded to a point about genetic modification by citing (what you apparently believed to be successful) breeding as a supposed counterexample. If anyone is using a straw man, it's you.
So the summary mentions cystic fibrosis. This is a perfect example. If you get 2 copies of the gene, you get a terrible condition and would (without modern treatment) probably die in you 20's. However, a single copy of the gene offers advantages [brynmawr.edu] over not having it at all.
Cystic Fibrosis is a good illustration, also, that selecting for the supposed well-being of children is a trap. One of my close friends is engaged to a man in his late 20's (or early 30's) with cystic fibrosis. Yes, he worries about his health, and yes he has had some scary moments, but generally he is fine. Him and his fiance are in love, and have a pretty good quality of life. He has done some interesting things in his life, and has pretty much enriched the lives of people around him. And while there are inevitable bouts of suffering (which is actually just part of the universal human condition), he is happy.
He is much happier than he would have been if he had been aborted. And we, the people around him, are better for his presence. So its presumptuous to really make a claim that ridding yourself of people like him would benefit anyone. This observation is true for many of the "defective" individuals I have met.
The key to my own ethical philosophy is "anyone how knows better, doesn't.". Enforcing anyone's vision of utopia on anyone else's is a greater wrong than letting a bit of suffering escape from the gates.
You also enter a bit of a slippery slope. Where do we draw a line? All of us are genetically defective. My family is prone to some nasty cardiovascular ailments, should we have been "fixed"? You run into eugenics, which really didn't end very well. Sure you switch the metric from skull shape to genes, but the beast remains the same. We just filled a newer version of science into an ancient justification.
This also completely ignores the environment, yet again. Yes, genes are important, but they aren't destiny. Yes, your child will have cystic fibrosis (or whatever), but this doesn't mean they will die of it, or even suffer. Science is awesome, and just maybe will have a way of helping when the time comes. This is pretty much true of most diseases now.
I hate the phrase "playing God", but it sums things up nicely. We act like we have knowledge, and that forcing our will on others is good, because of said knowledge. But in the end we don't actually much at all. Especially when it comes to dealing with human lives, sure we can know a little about the aggregate, but the individual will always remain a mystery.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
No, the problem is that moral busybodies or other authorities start dictating what character traits must to be culled "for the children" or "for society", such as the short list Professor Savulescu outlined. After all, it's a moral obligation.
But even if every tyrant's wet dream was somehow averted, let's do a thought experiment: suppose this hypothethical technology had been available at your parents time. Consequently, every character trait you have that your parents disagree with is eliminated, and every character trait you lack that they wish you had gets added. Are you comfortable with this thought? And if you are, feel free to extrapolate this further back in time, right through capitalists and communists and anarchists and monarchists and atheists and fundamentalist right back to the first living creature in your line; along the way you're bound to find someone you disagree with. Should that person be allowed to decide the content of your character?
You'd think an "expert in practical ethics" would think of the obvious practical consequences of his ethical recommendations, but I guess his flawed character can't resist the temptation of playing god.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
That's why you need more than "barely". Simple molecule, studied for safety... except they didn't test long enough, among enough diverse circumstances, to catch a major issue. Biological systems are orders of magnitude more complex than the things humans normally work with, and are the equivalent of spaghetti code, with just oodles of non-obvious interactions, kludges, and general weirdness.
So no, 'barely' isn't enough. You need 'thoroughly'.
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Yes, who are you to decide that I'll spend my life to pay off your bad choices. Preserve my human dignity please.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I noted two examples of where it turned out for the better
No, you did not. That's what my comment was all about. Well, that, and the fact that you claimed someone else made a straw man argument when they didn't (how could they, when your entire post was "Tell that to the banana, or household dog."?). For reference, since you've applied it twice now to situations in which it does not fit, here's the wikipedia article for "straw man".
You also chose to ignore half my comment...
I didn't ignore it. It was irrelevant to what I was commenting on, since I only disagreed with part of what you said. It's a common practice to only address relevant points, and since I don't disagree with your main thrust, which is that science and breeding are beneficial, I didn't see a point in addressing everything else you said. I have issues with your examples, not your point.
... where OTHER forms of common, DNA augmented species are NOT affected by that same blight.
Yeah...no. I actually chose not to respond as a courtesy, since, contrary to your claims that the Gros Michel is resistant to Panama Disease, the Gros Michel is extremely susceptible to Panama Disease . In fact, it was the banana that the Cavendish replaced when the Gros Michel was devastated by the disease in the '50s. Since that point was irrelevant to my arguments, I saw no reason (other than to undermine your credibility, which was not my purpose) to call you out for your blatant inaccuracy. But if you're going to try to hold it over my head like that, I have no qualms in doing so now.
Regarding Norman Borlaug, he too was irrelevant to what I was saying, since I wasn't arguing against breeding and science being beneficial or saving money. In fact, I agreed with you (as you would have known if you had read my comment) that they are beneficial. I saw no reason to state the fact that I agreed with you on that point, so I didn't address it.
So yes, you used a straw men by trying to take one specific aspect of my comment and disprove it
A straw man would be if I was arguing that science and breeding are worthless because bananas are a bad example. I'm not arguing that, however. I'm arguing that bananas were a piss poor example, but not going any further than that. The reason I attacked one specific aspect of your comment is because it was wrong, despite the fact that you reached the correct conclusion at the end. Choose better examples next time, since otherwise you make me feel bad for being on the same side as you. That was my point.
Wouldn't the DNA for durum semolina be the ultimate spaghetti code?
Yes.
Let's create a genetic monoculture, and screen out diversity.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I think you missed the point. Yes, they are the same species, just as my two examples are both vehicles. But one is a machine adapted to survive, endure and perform to it's limits, and the other is a toy.
I'm going to draw a lot of flack here, but I strongly believe that for many (not all) decision regarding future human beings, the parent are the last ones who should decide. Simple truth of the matter is that nobody is further away from objective evaluation than hormone-swamped people with built-in motherly and fatherly love.
Look at disabled children brought into the world with full knowledge of their genetic defects and severe consequences for their entire lives. There is no rational explanation for allowing that to happen, all the explanations are irrational: Either religion ("do not interfere with gods mysterious ways") or psycho-babble ("but it is our child and we'll love it no matter how it is").
There are some conditions where I consider it cruel to bringt that child into the world. It will be suffering its entire life. Abort it and make a new one if you are a loving parent.
Now TFA simply extends that to psychological, etc. defects. That's a bit SciFi and a bit nonsense because on most of those we do not yet know how much and what effect precisely the genetic component plays. But imagine it works, at least for some. What's the ethical consequences? I don't have a full answer, but I do have first-hand experience with someone mentally ill. Not genetically caused in this case, but for the thought-experiment assuming it would were. I must honestly say that I'm not sure. The amount of pain and suffering caused to both the ill one and everyone close was tremendous and long-term. I can not imagine any ethically defensible argument to abstain from prevent such things to happen, except that the actions required would be even worse. That certainly is true for murder, but then we're back at the irrational arguments where abortion and murder are equated, which rests on irrational definitions of life, personality and entity/beings.
And before you hit me with a reply, keep in mind that common sense is what tells us that the world is flat. Don't make "it feels wrong" an argument, because it isn't. Not in either direction - slavery or force marriages of very young girls didn't feel wrong for most of human history. Saying that your imaginary friend actually is imaginary, but not much of a friend, on the other hand, did.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Take olymplic athletes (just to employ a recent topic). Most of them quite probably outmatch you in willpower and determination, they train their bodies to crazy levels and can perform things we can only dream of. From an evolutionary point of view (let's focus on phyical traits and success), they are simply superior beings compared to those two humans that are you and me.
Do you think they view themselves "above" you? Some actually do, but if you choose not to push yourself to the limits like they do, how can you complain that this bothers you?
Do you think they despise you? I don't see how this matters, they made the choice to pursue success/perfection in their specific area "at all cost". You didn't (I assume boldly here...) and could say that pure chance has "genetically engineered" them to be like this (physically and psychologically)*, but then you have no excuse for not allowing other people to influence their fate and that of their children themselves instead of leaving it to luck.
Now substitute with successful nerds, small business owners that made it big, then switch to people who were born rich/influential because this doesn't make a difference in practise, or ... people who were genetically engineered babies!
This divide between more successful humans and less fortunate ones already exists today. Interestingly, the former ones are usually looked up to (including the rich-born)!
Not every genetically altered human will be better than every one of your "naturals" (who rely on chance), and for society, the clear downside of allowing this gap to be more pronounced (with possibly dystopic consequences, or maybe no really bad ones at all, but I agree that it will lead to complications in some areas) is met by the advantage of greatly improving the average, plus reducing suffering due to birth disabilties.
* simplifying here, of course the environment plays a role too, but you can wrap that with the "luck" blanket.
Then the blind one would cease to exist, and a completely different individual would be born.
Also: I love existing. Being dead would suck. And killing me in the womb would be at least as bad as killing me now. In fact, it would be worse, because if someone kills me now then I at least enjoyed life for a couple of decades.