Eugenics and its credibility in Gattaca

Does genetic screening and manipulation as presented in Gattaca evoke a new eugenics? Does this scenario seem credible given current scientific trends?

During the reign of the Nazis, German scientists contrived to create a single pure "Aryan" strain that they considered the dominant via selective breeding. This artificial selection and breeding of humans for genetic qualities, essentially what we have been doing for animals and crops are applied to humans. This is the fundamental element of Eugenics.

The world in Gattaca definitely evokes a new eugenics where a new form of discrimination called genoism has arisen.Those born of ‘natural-births’ have a higher chance of success and credibility and the gentically pure and perfect are favoured in society. In this environment, one could eliminate genes for myopia, a predisposition towards violence, mental retardation, and a host of other genetically induced traits and diseases. As a result, those conceived the traditional way, the ‘faith birth’s, or ‘God Children’’ or ‘Invalid’ people are at the bottom of the hierarchical chart due to their weaker DNA and shorter lifespan.

This scenario is highly conceivable given today’s rapid scientific and technological progress. Humanity has been tampering with eugenics for many years, through careful breeding of prize animals, engineered crops and livestock. Towards the early 1990’s, in-vitro fertilization was made possible and babies were produced from the merging of sperm and egg outside the womb. Soon after, cloning exploded in the scientific community with the birth of the first cloned animal, Dolly the Sheep. Now, in the early 2000's, there has even been debates of cloning a human, and the first trials of gene therapy have been done. The probability of a world like Gattaca’s is not merely fictional portrayal anymore.

However, the Gattaca world is a world of in which the pace of scientific discovery has been left unchecked by moralistic and ethical debate. If the ethical codes in our world continually shift and are compromised by declining morals then the greed and self-interest gains will control science and society will soon stagnate. The Nazis failed in their experiment, because their rule lasted less than one generation. But in the future, it is foreseeable that the rich will spend their money in creating designer babies void of health problems and matched with good looks through genetic engineering, creating an ‘elite class’ very similar to the superficial world portrayed in Gattaca where spirit is sacrificed in exchange for genetic supremacy.