Response to ...Eugenics in the 21st Century

One part of the discussion that got my attention was the points made from the article by Dr. Zimmerman in The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, regarding germ line therapy. He proposes that parents may be ethically responsible for the children they have not yet conceived. Even today, right now, in 2009, we (as a Western culture) don't hold parents responsible for the health of the children already born to them. Yes, parents ought to be held liable for birth defects due to inutero abuse of their children as in cocaine-addicted babies or fetal alcohol syndrome, but we do not prosecute these parents. We do not prosecute parents who smoke, or don't maintain an otherwise healthy lifestyle. We allow the religious beliefs of parents to influence medical care; we don't intervene or control people with hereditary diseases from conceiving children. Some day in the future, germ line therapy may cure the biological ills of our race, but I doubt that it can perfect our behavior towards eachother.