GENES, JUSTICE, AND OBLIGATIONS TO FUTURE PEOPLE

Extract

In this essay, I shall discuss ethical issues that arise with our increasing ability to affect the genetic makeup of the human population. These effects can be produced directly by altering the genotype (through germ-line or somatic changes), or indirectly by aborting, not conceiving, or treating individuals because of their genetic makeup in ways made possible by genetic pharmacology. I shall refer to all of these sorts of procedures collectively as the Procedures. Some of the ethical issues the Procedures raise are old, arising quite generally when we can affect the well-being of people, even in the absence of the ability to affect them in the ways just described. My examination of these issues is prompted by the recent at-length discussion of them, From Chance to Choice (henceforth CC), by Allen Buchanan, Dan Brock, Norman Daniels, and Daniel Wikler.