ABSTRACT

In this chapter, I analyse various discourses of the future of genetic medicine and the ways in which these discourses reinforce certain contemporary practices and values, while challenging others. I examine these twin discourses of future cure and future risks in discussions about a range of potential genetic technologies – gene therapy, genetic enhancement and cloning. I consider how ideas about liberty, enlightenment and perfection, and their twins, coercion, risk and dissolution, are manifest in variety of documents about future genetic technologies. I look at the ways in which these imagined futures are framed in relation to present and past practices, and consider what shapes the production of these discourses. I am especially interested in the overall effect of these twin discourses of cure and risk upon our collective sense of ownership and control over these new technologies. Discourses do not simply reflect prevailing cultural norms and values: they shape them too. However, there are many different sets of values and norms within contemporary society, reflected in the considerable ambivalence about the future of genetics and science more broadly. This means that the effects of future discourses are always partial and contingent upon a range of social processes.