Angelina Souren

We need to talk about this Angelina Souren

What kind of world do you want to live in? One that will accept your daughter no matter what she looks like or one that will reject your son because he is a little bit different? One in which we all get to live life to the full or one in which this is only possible for some of us? One in which everyone is welcome provided they live lives worth living and don't actively harm or one in which some humans are not allowed? What kind of world do you want your children and grandchildren to live in? Today, we are determining what it may be like to live in future societies and how inclusive they will be.

In We need to talk about this, Angelina Souren addresses various topics that are part of this complex area, not shying away from very difficult and challenging situations. New technologies like CRISPR have the power to change the composition of populations, just like older technologies like PGD and chorionic villus sampling have already done in some countries. As humans, we all have the duty to think about whether we want to let this continue unhampered or want to take this forward cautiously.

We all need to weigh in on this because if we don't, others will make these important decisions for us. Even the people many of us expect to have all the answers don't have all the answers. In China, a scientist has just gone to prison for three years for illegal CRISPR experiments on humans.

Make no mistake, however, this debate is not about science versus nature or technology versus nature. It's like this. If we look back into our recent history, we see that we've surprisingly often been unable to predict negative effects of what seemed great progress. It even looks like we often didn't spend much thought at all on possible consequences of what we were doing and in some cases, monetary motives prevailed.

If we were to eradicate too much natural diversity from the human species, we could end up dissolving the glue that binds society. We may also discover in the future that we actually need the full range of human diversity to enable us to make more progress. It's crucial to find the right balance and to work toward reaching a global consensus on these matters.

It is undeniable that there are people whose health conditions make them suffer and that we have to be as compassionate as possible. However, we also often underestimate the quality of life and unique abilities of people whose bodies or minds work differently.

In other words, We need to talk about this focuses on the new eugenics and many issues that surround it. We need to talk about this.

Hank Greely, Stanford University, April 2018, about the first edition:
"I've just looked at the description and it sounds interesting - and I certainly agree that "we have to talk about this." Changes in reproduction are coming; we can be unprepared or partially prepared but the latter will require a lot of talking. And reading, and writing."

Also available in Kindle format.