One of Gattaca’s most famous lines of dialogue is delivered by a geneticist to prospective parents. He is explaining to them why he has chosen a specific embryo for their future child: “I’ve taken the liberty of eradicating any potentially prejudicial conditions: premature baldness, myopia, alcoholism and addictive susceptibility, obesity, and so on.” That line was meant to feel ominous in 1997. It was supposed to show how easily a society’s definition of “harm” could expand from genuine illness to traits that were just socially inconvenient.
This article was written by David. A Kirby and originally published by The Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists.
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