GATTACA

The first three-parent baby was born in 2016, and the first British efforts to engineer babies with three genetic parents were approved in 2018. Since then, fewer than five children with this novel genotype have been born in the UK. They are exclusively the children of parents whose babies are at risk of life-threatening and life-altering mitochondrial conditions. So are these births evidence of a new genetic utopia on our collective horizon, or of a dangerous return to eugenics? In this session, we will explore utopian and dystopian visions of genetically perfected human bodies and societies.

Weekly Questions

• Why were 'perfect' humans frightening in 1997? Are they still?
• Has the public accepted the genetic modification of future human bodies?
• What forces have helped to reshape attitudes towards genetic and genomic tools for managing human life and identity?
• Is artificially perfected 'humanness' now safe?
• Has the quest for 'perfect' human bodies generated greater equality? Could it -- and if so, under what conditions?