Commodification: Permissibility of Genetic Enhancement

Commodification: Permissibility of Genetic Enhancement
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Commodification: Permissibility of Genetic Enhancement
Genetic engineering and enhancement aim to alter genes to produce desirable outcomes through in vivo, in vitro, or in utero conditions. Geneticists conduct procedures to cure diseases through gene therapy, prevent illnesses by removing genetic risk factors, or improve performance or capacities. In "Do we have an obligation to make smarter babies," Lisa Bortolotti offers the morality of genetic engineering from the perspective of the ethical principle of beneficence. Applying this principle, Bortolotti (2009) argues that genetic enhancement and engineering will potentially avoid harmful disabilities in humans. In expanding the meaning of "harm," Bortolotti (2009) compares genetic engineering to other means of enhancing human functioning worse than alternatives. John Harris believes that the reasons for not harming others are continuous, with the same reasons for conferring benefits to others if possible (Bortolotti, 2009). In Harris' argument, the reasons to avoid harming others are equivalent to the reasons for producing benefits for others. Within the perspective of genetic enhancement, the reasons for engineering out cognitive ability equate to the reasons for producing cognitive gains. Nevertheless, this paper argues that we should not do genetic enhancement because it would commodify them.
In the current market-based healthcare financing system, patients are often considered consumers while the healthcare provider is a seller of the services in economic terms. In this open market system, any judgment, including individual decisions about medical treatment, is often made based on cost-benefit analysis, productivity, and functionality. Such a circumstance positions commerce in a powerful place, and it would be impossible to propose limits to the wholesale treatment of genetic enhancement as one of the many available options or products in the market. While inherited genetic modification (IGM) might not comprise the source of attitudes making science and medicine a form of concentrated power or converting parenting into an exercise of power over offspring for the primary reason of satisfying the parental desires, it will exacerbate the attitudes by offering parents a powerful tool that will need the participation of society in examining the issue of commodification. These attitudes would make the world a competition platform where financially sound people will afford to have smarter babies.
Having smarter or designed babies has been thought to result in unexpected consequences from unsafe and harmful procedures and introduce inequality in producing them. To answer the first concern about the safety of having enhanced babies, Bortolotti (2009) talks of the drugs and treatments that athletes often use to enhance their performance during competition. In this argument, Bortolotti (2009) addresses the audience to imagine the possibilities of enhancing children's skills by enrolling them in musical classes or taking a pill a day for a few months to improve their cognitive abilities. According to Bortolotti (2009), the best option for parents is to provide a one-pill-a-month to children...