ABSTRACT
The media periodically evokes the image o f a brave new world o f designer babies. In the broadsheets, recent headlines include: ‘“ Designer Babies’ raise the spectre o f genetic manipulation;” “Deaf parents could choose to have deaf children”; and “Gay groups split over ‘engineered babies’.”' This book has taken an unavoidably theoretical approach to the issues behind these headlines. It has explored the implications o f a specific moral theory for the techniques and goal o f prenatal influence. That there are no morally neutral opt-outs hardly needs mentioning; the decision not to regulate is clearly as much a decision in need o f justification as the decision to regulate.
