Sex Selection and the Road to Transhumanism
Starting by discussing the recent controversy over sex selection, I will
examine how our standard lenses for bioethics allow us to talk (or not)
about reproduction, and the paths they encourage and discourage for
future generations. My talk will avoid the abortion aspect of the sex
selection controversy, and explicitly focus on trait selection (either pre- or
post-conception), eugenics, and the way we argue about what forms of
these practices are right and wrong. I will suggest that an ethics focused
primarily on autonomy, choice, and social justice will in spirit be opposed
to eugenics but may in fact lead to a sort of "soft" eugenics that implicitly
ushers in a transhumanist era without ever purposefully endorsing it.
The imperative task for bioethics today is to broaden its language to
encompass the full breadth and depth of what is at stake in our hopes for
and our disquiet at the new technologies of engineering humanity.