Science, Technology and the Perfect Child: An Ethics and Values Critique

Dr. Rothschild will complete part three of her book in progress, Engineering Birth: Human Perfectibility and the Technological Dream. The project will evaluate the bioethics and feminist literature relevant to the book's central thesis: as the new reproductive technologies interact with values and beliefs about human perfectibility, norms are being set for the 'perfect child,' recalling, yet transforming, an old ideology. The book asks why, even as the bioethics and feminist literature invokes the possibility of creating new or improved human beings, does much of this work still fail to discuss how standards are being set, the criteria themselves, and what the meaning might be for the future direction and use of such reproductive research. The project will argue that these perspectives can play a positive role in integrating ethical perspectives and in setting frameworks for meaningful dialogue between ethical evaluators and those who pursue, apply, and experience scientific and technological research. (Co-funded with NSF)