Op-Ed by Kavli Center Affiliate: Silicon Valley’s tech elite want to make superbabies. They shouldn’t

Kavli Center affiliated faculty member and former fellow, Julia Brown, co-authored an opinion piece that appeared this week in the The San Francisco Standard. Co-author, Daphne Martschenko, recently came to the Kavli Center to share a preview of her upcoming book, The Acid We Inherit, and to discuss the complex history and ethics of behavioral genomics with our fellows. These topics and discussions across opposing viewpoints have been a focus of the center's fellows over the last year.

The article is re-printed below. 

“Pronatalist” parents like Simone and Malcolm Collins want it all: optimized babies – lots of them. 

To achieve this goal, the influencer couple from Pennsylvania is using an emerging technology known as preimplantation genetic testing for polygenic disorders, or PGT-P, to select embryos during in vitro fertilization. The Collins proudly identify as autistic, so they don’t rule out embryos they think carry a predisposition for autism. They select for traits like IQ and deselect what they call “mental health-related stuff.” Screening embryos for desirable and undesirable traits, the Collins’ say, is the first step to achieving their goal of “low-effort parenting.” 

The family is part of the next boom to hit Silicon Valley: fertility tech for producing “superbabies.” High-profile tech entrepreneurs like Open AI CEO Sam Altman, 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki, and billionaire entrepreneur Peter Thiel are backing startups with names such as Orchid Health, Gattaca Genomics, and Genomic Prediction. 

These companies promise to tell prospective parents how to “mitigate more risks” and capitalize on “life’s potential.” They offer to screen embryos for multigene conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and depression. “It’s gonna become insane not to screen for these things,” the founder and CEO of Orchid has said.

Clinically, PGT-P has limited accuracy and utility. And concerns abound about entrepreneurs peddling snake oil, or of supporters embracing eugenics. But another drawback underlies PGT-P: the folly of parents who try to achieve total control over their children. The technology promotes a very narrow idea of health and success, and undermines the social conditions in which people reach their potential.

Silicon Valley is full of quirky and eccentric people. The ranks of tech innovators include a high number of neurodivergent people. Diversity in thought and behavior has been a net gain for technological progress. Selecting for superbabies sends a signal against such diversity. 

But proponents of PGT-P aren’t as in control as they may believe when they try to pick some traits while rejecting others. Selecting the embryo with the lowest genetic risk for heart disease and the highest potential for educational attainment may seem simple, but it isn’t. The parts of the genome that affect one complex trait also affect others. For example, selecting an embryo with a slightly higher chance of educational attainment also means selecting an embryo with a 16% higher relative risk of developing bipolar disorder, according to a special report in The New England Journal of Medicine. And genetic research shows significant overlaps between the numerous genetic variants associated with autism and psychiatric conditions.

The PGT-P company Gattaca Genomics references the sci-fi film Gattaca, in which one character is born without the use of PGT-P and beats the odds working against his success. Another PGT-P born character dies by suicide when he doesn’t live up to his genetic “destiny.” The film teaches that expecting a child to have a genetic advantage can rob individuals of something fundamental to human flourishing: the freedom to become themselves.  

PGT-P is no longer science fiction. It’s here, and the expectations it carries could be damaging to children, parents, and society. Emphasizing academic success in and of itself does not lead to improved outcomes. In fact, the constant attention to academic performance can cause kids harm. Kids are more likely to flourish at school when they have the social structures of parental warmth and routine, and when they can discover who they are and be celebrated for their differences. 

Parents using PGT-P might argue they can balance academic demands and social and emotional development, but that’s not what a PGT-P selection decision promotes. It instead promotes the idea that parents can and should control variables that in reality are not always linked to future success or fulfillment.

The social pressures placed on modern parents to control what they can’t is a public health crisis. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has sounded an alarm that 48% of parents are experiencing stress that is “completely overwhelming” due to impossible expectations around giving a child the best possible start to life.Murthy has called for a shift away from attempting to optimize everything about a child’s life.

The growing hype about PGT-P sends the opposite, and damaging, message — that health, success, and happiness begins with genetics and parental control and optimization. Instead, PGT-P sets expectations that can’t possibly be met.

Julia Brown, PhD is an Assistant Professor at University of California San Francisco who is investigating the ethics of prenatal genetic technologies. She is author of The Clozapine Clinic.

Daphne Martschenko, PhD is an Assistant Professor at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics. She is co-author of the forthcoming book The Acid We Inherit