Who Gets the Good Genes?

In the 1932 novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley envisioned future childbirth as a very orderly affair. At the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Center, in accordance with orders from the Social Predestination Room, eggs were fertilized, bottled and put on a conveyor belt. Nine months later, the embryos--after "decanting"--were babies. Thanks to state-sponsored brainwashing, they would grow up delighted with their genetically assigned social roles--from clever, ambitious alphas to dim-witted epsilons.

Ever since publication of Huxley's dystopian novel, this has been the standard eugenics nightmare: government social engineers subverting individual reproductive choice for the sake of an eerie social...

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