Big Brother's Bottom-line Babies Designer-Gene Blues, part 2 In the last Daily Dose, I opened a discussion about how new developments in genetic science and molecular-level genetic screening techniques can detect hundreds of diseases and defects likely to rear their heads in the growing fetus, or in the babe after birth… Already, this kind of screening is being used to make life-or-death (to the embryo, that is) decisions regarding human births in the UK. And in many people's eyes, this is a good thing - sparing both children's life-long misery at having been born deficient and parents the trauma of having to raise kids with special needs. A win/win scenario, right? Perhaps in some ways… However, as I alluded to in part 1 of this series, I'm betting that the tendency of people to want to screen their kids not just for defects and diseases, but for traits and characteristics as well, will prove too powerful an incentive to remain at an arms length in the equation. I think that humans' vanity-driven desire to breed "super-kids" that have a leg up on their peers would soon outweigh purely health-related criteria - and that the line between what constitutes a "disease" worth terminating an embryo for will creep ever closer to simple genetic imperfection, rather than bona-fide genetic defect. But as I wrapped up the last essay with, this "human vanity" angle isn't even the most sinister piece of the prenatal health-screening (read: genetic engineering) puzzle. No, as usual, the darkest and most unscrupulous aspects of the debate come not from self-interested individuals, but from government. Here's what I mean… As you know, a common theme in a lot of my essays is the modern tendency of policy-makers to focus only on bottom-line concerns instead of fundamental principles - like liberty. For instance: In the cigarette debate, everyone talks about how much smoking COSTS society (these numbers are debatable, by the way), not how much the liberty to smoke is WORTH in a supposedly free society. In other words, if policymakers weren't convinced that outlawing smoking would either save or make them gobs of money (via decreased MediCare costs, greater tax-revenue from more-profitable insurance companies, or whatever), there wouldn't BE a debate about it. It would simply be a freedom that some would savor and others would have to tolerate, and that would be that… It's the same way for our diets. If people's weight had nothing at all to do with increasing costs on the health-care, housing, transportation, and employment fronts, the government wouldn't waste time or its precious dollars outlawing trans-fats, mandating caloric charts and warning labels, or putting out ridiculous guidelines (like the fattening Food Pyramid) yammering at us to stay thin… See? It's ALL driven by the bottom line. Everything, all the time. One little snippet in the UK Daily Mail article that brought this cost/benefit point front and center for this particular moral/ethical/political quagmire stated that the average cost per couple for genetic screening is from £6,000 to around £20,000 (if multiple screening attempts are needed)… But the average cost of caring for a disabled or genetically defective child could run as high as £2,000,000. In many cases, these bills are paid almost entirely out of public funds. THAT's why I'm certain that this kind of screening will be offered on both sides of the Atlantic, sooner rather than later, and on the taxpayers' dime: Not because it's noble, but because it saves money off the bottom line. The reason it'll be publicly funded is two-fold: One, to make sure couples do it so that as many high-cost - er, "high-risk" pregnancies can be avoided (soon after authorization for public funding, such screenings would be mandated by law - you watch!) And two, so that the government (via the screening results), can influence parents' decision-making about whether to have their babies or not. They'll publish a bunch of scary pamphlets and hire a bunch of bean counters in white lab coats to convince people NOT to have kids that pose even the slightest risk of incurring additional health-care costs. It'll be like something out of Orwell… And as a result, a lot of misery WILL be spared - but also a lot of perfectly productive and happy future lives will be extinguished before they're even given a chance to triumph over their genetic challenges… Now consider this: How will the government react if a couple WANTS to have their baby, even though it'll likely by genetically defective - and an extra expense to society to raise? Will they respect the couple's courage and freedom to buck the odds and take their lumps? Or will they mandate destruction of the embryo for bottom-line reasons? That will be the high water mark moment in the debate. And the true indicator of whether we've sold our American souls down the "green river." | 
