Book Review: Babies by Design: The Ethics of Genetic Choice

January 20, 2009

In Babies by Design, Ronald M. Green has produced a helpful, interesting, and above all clear introduction to the ethical issues surrounding the use of new and prospective genetic technologies. His focus is primarily, though despite his title not exclusively, on the application that such technologies have to the avoidance of genetic disorder in future children, as well as to the more controversial issue of the production of children with enhanced capabilities. The book is ideal for students new to the field, and for the intelligent general reader. Those already familiar with the ethical problems it covers will find nothing especially new in it, though they may derive considerable benefit from Green’s careful accounts of the science of human genetic engineering. Certainly, the work is commendably free of jargon, assumes no prior knowledge of philosophy in general or bioethics in particular, and is written in a remarkably lucid and engaging style.Metapsychology