Single Parenthood & I: The genetic lottery
Genes make a man, they say (well, they don't, but you know), and whether that's good news or bad for my offspring is debatable.
Perhaps things were better when we lived in some degree of ignorance. There was a time when we knew little about heredity, when we had an idea that children were and would be like their parents, but it was only really with the discovery of DNA and coming to understand how this works and what it means that we've started to fully grasp the nature of it.
There will also be a point at which we can act upon heredity, when medical science will be able to shape and mould the person that our children become. The implications of this are enormous and far-reaching. What if we can eliminate the risk of horrific hereditary diseases? What if we can rewire our unborn to be more intelligent, fitter or better looking than their genes might otherwise have determined? What ethical lines do we draw, do we simply conclude that nature knows best, or can we do better? These are big questions, and it often feels as though we're increasingly ill-equipped to answer them, certainly in a world in which there are billionaires who believe that they can literally “cheat death”.
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