Michael Anissimov provides a thought-provoking analysis of the designer baby debate in H+ magazine.

As with life extension, it amazes me that infant trait selection is capable of whipping up any sort of controversy at all. Being able to ensure that children are healthy, strong, smart and so forth seems like one of those things that ought to have pretty much universal appeal. For example, it's a technology that should appeal to both sides of the abortion debate:

If you're pro-choice, and opposed to pre-implantation genetic diagnosis(PGD), you're all for letting parents choose to kill their unborn offspring, but draw the line at letting them select eye-color or screen for heart disease. (Huh?)

If you're pro-life, and opposed to PGD, you know full well that abortion is available anyway, so in opposing pre-screening, you're actually increasing the chances that an abortion will occur when parents make a later choice to avoid having a child with traits they could have pre-screened for. (To be fair, this is not an inconsistent position for those pro-lifers who honestly believe that not implanting a week-old embryo and terminating a fetus that's six months along are identical acts. Yep, they're out there. Quite a few of them, in fact.)

But people have good reasons, or what they take to be good reasons, for being opposed to designer babies. After all, screening baby traits goes against nature (see "life extension," above.) If we allow all this genetic stuff to happen, we're going to end up like Gattaca, which will be, like, way dehumanizing and stuff, and ultimately highly unfair to all the Ethan Hawkes. Besides, designer babies means eugenics and that means Nazis, period.

I know, it sounds like I'm kidding. But read Michael's article. Those are the arguments.

However, for good or for ill, I believe that ultimately this debate will be settled on grounds other than the philosophical. Parents are going to do what they perceive to be in the best interests of their children. If that means taking actions inconsistent with their philosophical stance on abortion, or their gut reaction to a 1997 Uma Thurman movie, or even -- for that matter -- the law of the land, then so be it. To give an example I'm not entirely comfortable with, consider these numbers:

The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery says that breast enlargement procedures among women under the age of 19 have increased by almost 500 percent in the last 10 years, compared with a 300 percent increase among the general population.

Who is paying for these procedures? Surely the parents are in nearly all cases. Tens of thousands of parents are paying for putative aesthetic improvements for their teenage children. If parents learn that there are aesthetic choices that can be made up front -- before the child is born -- do you think they won't take them? Throw in the ability to pre-select physical and mental capabilities and prevent diseases, and you have a slam dunk.

To put this controversy in perspective: when IVF was first performed 30 years ago or so, it was hugely controversial. Many of the same philosophical arguments raised against PGD were raised against it. Now we have thousands of children born every year thanks to IVF technology. Any remaining controversy has had to take the backseat to the empowerment of parents and opening up new possibilities for them. So it will be, I predict, with PGD and subsequent enhancement technologies.

(By the way, George Dvorsky -- quoted in Michael's article -- and H+ editor RU Sirius will be joining us on the upcoming FastForward Radio to discuss designer babies and other issues related to human enhancement. Don' miss it.)