One of my favorite sci-fi movies of the last 15 years or so is one called Gattaca, a 1997 film (starring Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, and Gore Vidal) that imagines a society in which those who are genetically inferior are relegated to the underclass. In this futuristic world, information on the life expectancy and potential diseases of children are registered and used to determine genetic superiority. It’s a creepy premise, but given history’s track record of giving us people who believe in genetic purity, it would be wise for us to be aware of the slippery slope we could head down.

It’s an extremely complicated issue, this topic of genetic examinations. I’m all for prenatal testing (such as the CVS) and newborn screening done on infants that can gauge whether they can get any number of harmful if not fatal conditions. However, I am strongly against picking eye color and other traits that have nothing to do with health. This choice is apparently a current possibility for parents who go to a fertility doctor, who has offices in New York and Los Angeles. The physician, who has been very successful in helping moms and dads select the gender of their children, claims with “80% certainty” that he can help parents choose the eye color of their babies.

Where will all this go? Will we be making custom kids, as if we were playing on a computer game? Are we heading toward a future in which there will be discrimination against those who are considered less perfectly determined by human intervention? What do you all think? What, if any, physical characteristics would you want to pick for your child? Again, my feeling is that once we move beyond the topic of health, we’re going too far.

And where’s the fun in knowing everything about your child before he or she is born? I’m still hoping the make some money on the bet I have with my wife that our only fair-haired son will stay that way through adolescence.