Your culture will be pro-eugenics by tomorrow
Embryo-testing for intelligence is here, right now
This is a short post to share a press release, from today, by Nucleus, a comprehensive genetic testing company. Today they announced “Nucleus Embryo”, a product to offer that same testing for IVF embryos, so couples can decide which of those children they would like to actually have. From Twitter today:
I want to emphasize here that this is designer children actually put forward as a moral imperative. Don’t you want your child to have the best preparation for life that you can, parent? Don’t you want them to surpass yourself in life? Genetic screening and selection is now part of that, they are saying.
Their press release specifically mentions screening for intelligence:
Nucleus Embryo enables parents undergoing IVF to analyze and compare up to 20 embryos across over 900 hereditary conditions and 40 additional analyses beyond basic viability, spanning cancers, chronic conditions, appearance, cognitive ability, mental health, and more.
But longevity was never just about health. It’s about thriving. That’s why this announcement also marks the first time in human history a company has openly partnered with a couple to help them optimize their embryos based on intelligence. You can read part of their story below.
And from the referenced story from their first couple.
Nucleus carefully analyzed the genome of every single one of our embryos. Nucleus gave us a report on which embryos were likely to grow in to adults with a long healthy life. Importantly, Nucleus also told us which embryos were likely to grow in to adults with above average cognitive abilities.
In our opinion as intended parents, every single intended parent that is doing IVF should consider selecting Nucleus.
Do you have an answer for this, Christians? If we’re not there already, we’re going to be living in a society that is, not secretly, but unashamedly, pro-eugenics, very soon. This includes plenty of people on the political Right, by the way, who also see humans as either “just a mechanism” or as creatures with so many mechanical parts that, even if we have a soul too, it just makes sense to optimize the mechanism. The general divide on the Right between folks who see new technologies (like AI) primarily as awesome (for Christians, even as part of our creation mandate to use them), or primarily as dangerous, also applies here.
I appreciated Edward Hamilton’s response today:
I also had the thought that, for Nucleus, this is a money-making venture, I suspect lots of money. They are telling IVF parents that, if you want to be the best parent, buy our product. That’s going to be a very powerful appeal. And if we wanted our government to step in and say yes or no, I think among other things, it can hardly keep up the rate of change anyway. (And we know Trump is pro-IVF, so he isn’t one to stand in the way.)
And yes, a reason to analyze these questions wholistically is because, if we say “yes” to this, what else are we saying yes to? In this case, creating gigantic numbers of viable embryos so we can select the absolute best one to keep. It’s a game of random statistics, the more players involved, the better the best player will be.
And finally, one more reply on Twitter, from a locked account, so I will preserve their anonymity.
IVF is the problem, not just this overt eugenics. Once one has accepted discarding "surplus" embryos (or keeping them on ice indefinitely), then "scientific" selecting which to implant (rather than chance) is not a big leap.