ABSTRACT
In this essay I will try to suggest ways of thinking about biotechnology, bioethics, and disability that are compatible with democratic values. I will start with the uncontroversial proposition that we have entered an era in which our capacity for manipulating genetic material will determine what it means to be human-and in which our deliberations about what it means to be human will guide our capacity for manipulating genetic material. In saying this, I am presuming not only that political deliberations can determine the scope and direction of scientific research-that much seems obvious-but also that democratic values should prevail with regard both to the procedures and the substance of such deliberations. Affirming at the outset one’s commitment to deliberative democracy in such matters does not foreordain their outcome: it remains to be determined, for instance, whether it is consonant with democracy to prohibit or permit prospective parents to engage in genetic selection for Huntington’s disease or for myopia, or to prohibit or permit potential genetic therapies for Alzheimer’s or multiple sclerosis. Deliberative democrats can plausibly come to different conclusions on these questions, based on opposing yet reasonable assessments of how to understand and adjudicate competing claims with regard
