THE DETAILS:

Nucleus Genomics announced Nucleus Embryo in a new press release, in which prospective parents can use “genetic optimization software” to rank their embryos.

For nearly $6,000, parents can compare their embryos’ projected IQ, height, eye color, and almost 900 other traits before choosing which to implant. While it is already possible to screen embryos for gender and certain conditions like Down syndrome, this start-up has taken it to another level.

The founder and CEO, Kian Sadeghi, took to social media to express his shock that the press release garnered pushback from people classifying it as eugenics. “Alright I gotta come out and say this is crazy. Since when is preventative medicine eugenics?” he asked. “And if a couple exercises their right to choose their own embryo based on what matter most to them… that’s eugenics? We have lost the plot.”

He added:

We called it ‘genetic optimization.’ We are saying exactly what it is. Everyone talks about optimizing health. When someone says that, they don’t just mean the absence of disease. They mean thriving, in every sense: cognitively, physically, etc. There is no ‘diseases’ and ‘traits.’ Which is why we provide the couple with everything.

COMMENTARY:

Sadeghi is right about one thing: we have lost the plot when we create human beings in labs and select and rank them for whatever characteristics we desire them to have, like some sort of special-order product, then discarding the others.

Unsurprisingly, his explanation did little to assuage the numerous detractors who responded to his tweets; as one person stated, “You’re defining eugenics but giving it a more positive name, sir.”

Another stated, “You can’t slip IQ into the demo reel and pretend this is just preventative medicine… I don’t think most people would consider a person with an IQ of 90 to be less healthy than a person with an IQ of 100.”

Another wrote, “What you are describing is literally eugenics. Definitionally, it isn’t even medicine, because it’s predicated on the destruction of human life….”

Others weighed in as well, sharing the definition of eugenics and pointing out how selecting for someone’s IQ definitely doesn’t fall under the category of ‘preventative medicine’:

When one user oddly claimed that selecting embryo characteristics is similar to ‘selecting’ the characteristics of one’s children when choosing who to marry, other commenters weren’t convinced, with one writing sarcastically, “Of course the suitors you don’t pick aren’t then killed[,] so there is a slight difference.”

REALITY CHECK:

The fertility industry treats the children created by artificial reproductive technologies into products to be bought and sold. Trends in the industry include everything from sex selection, to battling over embryos as custody in divorce battles, to IVF vacation destinations. Children who don’t measure up to the standards required by their purchasers are often destroyed.

People have even gone so far as to trade embryos with strangers because they are the “wrong” gender. Some have even turned their ‘leftover’ embryos into jewelry.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Human beings should never be treated as products to be bought and sold, or created in labs and ranked by their genetic characteristics à la “Gattaca.” Sadly, children conceived through the largely unchecked fertility industry are treated as commodities.

For nearly $6,000, parents can compare their embryos’ projected IQ, height, eye color, and almost 900 other traits before choosing which to implant. While it is already possible to screen embryos for gender and certain conditions like Down syndrome, this start-up has taken it to another level.

The founder and CEO, Kian Sadeghi, took to social media to express his shock that the press release garnered pushback from people classifying it as eugenics. “Alright I gotta come out and say this is crazy. Since when is preventative medicine eugenics?” he asked. “And if a couple exercises their right to choose their own embryo based on what matter most to them… that’s eugenics? We have lost the plot.”

He added:

We called it ‘genetic optimization.’ We are saying exactly what it is. Everyone talks about optimizing health. When someone says that, they don’t just mean the absence of disease. They mean thriving, in every sense: cognitively, physically, etc. There is no ‘diseases’ and ‘traits.’ Which is why we provide the couple with everything.

COMMENTARY:

Sadeghi is right about one thing: we have lost the plot when we create human beings in labs and select and rank them for whatever characteristics we desire them to have, like some sort of special-order product, then discarding the others.

Unsurprisingly, his explanation did little to assuage the numerous detractors who responded to his tweets; as one person stated, “You’re defining eugenics but giving it a more positive name, sir.”

Another stated, “You can’t slip IQ into the demo reel and pretend this is just preventative medicine… I don’t think most people would consider a person with an IQ of 90 to be less healthy than a person with an IQ of 100.”

Another wrote, “What you are describing is literally eugenics. Definitionally, it isn’t even medicine, because it’s predicated on the destruction of human life….”

Others weighed in as well, sharing the definition of eugenics and pointing out how selecting for someone’s IQ definitely doesn’t fall under the category of ‘preventative medicine’:

When one user oddly claimed that selecting embryo characteristics is similar to ‘selecting’ the characteristics of one’s children when choosing who to marry, other commenters weren’t convinced, with one writing sarcastically, “Of course the suitors you don’t pick aren’t then killed[,] so there is a slight difference.”

REALITY CHECK:

The fertility industry treats the children created by artificial reproductive technologies into products to be bought and sold. Trends in the industry include everything from sex selection, to battling over embryos as custody in divorce battles, to IVF vacation destinations. Children who don’t measure up to the standards required by their purchasers are often destroyed.

People have even gone so far as to trade embryos with strangers because they are the “wrong” gender. Some have even turned their ‘leftover’ embryos into jewelry.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Human beings should never be treated as products to be bought and sold, or created in labs and ranked by their genetic characteristics à la “Gattaca.” Sadly, children conceived through the largely unchecked fertility industry are treated as commodities.