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The Startup Sparking a New Eugenics Debate

Designer babies are nothing new. Adam Nash, the first designer baby, was born in 2000 and is probably older than you are. His embryo was screened and selected so that he could act as a blood donor for his sister. In the UK, embryos being used for IVF now routinely go through such testing to prevent hereditary illness. So why has Heliospect Genomics — a startup that offers embryo screening —  been suddenly making headlines?

Public information about Heliospect is limited sans for a sparse website which states their “mission to find genetic variants associated with common diseases and psychological traits.” It’s the latter aim that’s been the cause of media attention. Private meetings recorded by undercover journalists (associated with the charity Hope Not Hate) revealed that the company promises to increase embryo IQ by up to six points.

Modification of IQ and other non-life-threatening conditions is extremely controversial. While legal in the US, where the company is based, it is currently illegal in the UK. Discussions around embryo screening frequently include concerns about the slippery slope towards ‘eugenics’ — the practice whereby the human gene pool can be manipulated in favour of more desirable traits. Such practices are generally considered objectionable because they have historically led to the subjugation of so-called ‘inferior’ populations — most notoriously in Nazi Germany.

Dr Jonathan Anomaly, a senior lecturer at Duke University who is involved in Heliospect’s project, has a different perspective to offer. Anomaly is a proponent of ‘liberal eugenics’, the movement which suggests that, so long as it is voluntary (unlike the coercive practices of Nazism), eugenics might not only be acceptable but morally desirable. Anomaly has also touted other contentious theories such as ‘race realism’, the idea that race is a real biological category. Although Anomaly has hotly denied Hope Not Hate’s claim that he and the company have far-right affiliations, his beliefs have sounded alarm bells about what these ‘liberal eugenics’ might entail.

Heliospect is a private startup currently in stealth mode; this means that its actions, methods, and technology are being kept secret until its launch. Therefore, the company’s executives are the only people who can fully understand the consequences of their services or make decisions about who they offer them to. Not just anyone can access the ‘liberal eugenics’ that Heliospect sells, as services can cost between $4,000 and $50,000. The startup also vets their clients themselves, though the details of this process are unknown. These consequences are already in motion, although we cannot access them. According to Heliospect, there are babies who have already undergone screening.

Although the company operates within the confines of US law, the ramifications of this scientific advance will reverberate beyond the country’s borders. The startup uses data obtained from the UK Biobank for its research, which is a database containing the health data of roughly 500,000 UK-based volunteers. It is partially funded by the Department of Health, an advantage only available to a pre-approved pool of researchers and companies. Media coverage on Heliospect has highlighted the pressing need to make ethical decisions about the status of embryo screening for IQ and other eugenics-like practices. What this obscures is the extent to which these decisions have already been made by a relatively small number of people. The media debate surrounding designer babies cannot close because it hasn’t really opened — the decision is being made for us.

Illustration by Holly Ward