Diana Fleischman: Are Designer Babies The Future?

Evolutionary psychologist Diana Fleischman discusses IVF, artificial genetic selection, and her unique take on the Ethan Hawke/Uma Thurman movie, Gattaca.

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Diana Fleischman: Are Designer Babies The Future?

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Are embryos people? And are there downsides to designer babies?

Earlier this year, Alabama's Supreme Court handed down a controversial decision declaring that frozen embryos should be treated as children, and therefore their destruction treated legally as wrongful deaths, leaving in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics with a big problem. Less than a month later, the state's Republican governor, Kay Ivey, signed into law a bill protecting access to IVF treatment in the state. As Reason reported at the time, the court ruling had "caused near-immediate chaos, with three IVF providers in the state shutting down operations." Widespread backlash ensued, including from conservatives like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who told CNN, "We want to make it easier for people to be able to have babies, not…make it harder….And the IVF process is a way of giving life to even more babies."

Today's guest is not only pro-IVF as an infertility treatment but also as a way for parents to select desirable genetic traits for their offspring. Diana Fleischman is an evolutionary psychologist, a regular host of The Aporia Podcast, and creator of the Dissentient Substack.  

Watch the full conversation on Reason's YouTube channel or the Just Asking Questions podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcatcher.

Sources referenced in this conversation:

1. "Alabama Governor Signs Bill Protecting IVF Treatments," by Emma Camp
2. Alabama Supreme Court Ruling
3. Polygenic Embryo Screening: High Approval Despite Substantial Concerns from the U.S. Public, published in medRxiv
4. Boston Globe article on "the manosphere"
5. Gattaca
6. Diana Fleischman: Does Evolutionary Psychology Really Cause Mass Shootings?
7. "Embryo Selection: Toward a healthier society," by Diana Fleischman, Ives Parr, Jonathan Anomaly, and Laurent Tellier

Timestamps:

1. 00:00 Introduction
2. 01:59 Are Embryos People? Exploring Sentience and Moral Value
3. 04:40 Sentience and Utilitarianism: A Deep Dive
4. 09:28 The Wisdom of Repugnance and Moral Disgust
5. 14:55 The Alabama Case: Legal and Moral Implications
6. 21:10 Designer Babies and Genetic Screening
7. 23:36 Gattaca and the Ethics of Genetic Engineering
8. 28:08 Public Opinion on Polygenic Embryo Screening
9. 38:22 Catholic Objections
10. 41:21 Ethical Dilemmas in Genetic Selection
11. 45:17 Religious Perspectives on Genetic Engineering
12. 46:58 The Future of Reproduction and Society
13. 52:54 Personal Reflections on Parenthood and Genetics
14. 01:08:12 Defending Evolutionary Psychology
15. 01:12:51 Final Question

• Producer: John Osterhoudt

Comments

[Chumby]

GATTACA

[Paloma]

God, that was a dumb movie.

[Spiritus Mundi]

Are embryos people?

Of course not! Don't be silly. They are just a clump of cells. They could be a dog or an apple. Who knows!? And it is complete coincidence that any genetic manipulation of that clump of cells is observed later in a person, who was never a clump of cells, but always a person.

[SQRLSY One]

Every sperm is sacred!!!

[mad.casual]

Earlier this year, Alabama's Supreme Court handed down a controversial decision declaring that frozen embryos should be treated as children and, therefore, their destruction treated legally as wrongful deaths, leaving in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics with a big problem.

Current babies aren't design-free. You people are just demonstrating your compulsion, your need to design more morons.

“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”
― Douglas Adams

[Zeb]

The customer is always the problem and they will always find new ways to fuck any system up.

[Rick James]

Wasn't there a couple of controversies where some IVF physician was swapping the requested sperm with his own, thus providing his customers with a false design template for their babies?

[Don't look at me!]

Do you know who else wanted designer babies?

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Pluggo?

[JesseAz (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Kim Kardashian?

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

So I couldn't get past the fact that there is an Evolutionary psychologist out there. Are there others? What exactly does this even mean? Never mind. I don't care.

[Aspiring Statesman]

If every IVF embryo is precious, then in addition to destruction being a wrongful death, each must have a legal right to be implanted -- Anything less would be kidnapping.

Therefore, when Alabamans conceive via IVF, they must either carry and raise all of their children or else offer them up for adoption to any couples able to carry or pay surrogates.

It's simple once one sheds emotion and applies logic!

[Jokibif0]

I was rather disappointed in [1] the fact that there were numerous references to selecting for "intelligence" without any discussion of exactly what "intelligence" means, and how it's selected for, and [2] Fleischman's answer to the question of how we know that, by selecting for some traits we consider desirable, that we're not inadvertently selecting for others that are undesirable. Just because we're not deliberately selecting for traits like a certain body shape (a la dachshunds) that causes problems like back problems doesn't mean that we won't discover correspondences with deleterious traits. I would have preferred both matters above to be dealt with more scientifically.