#520: Curating A Perfect Baby
Preimplantation genetic testing, being an aunt, stolen land, and the myth of MLK
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This week’s issue is typical AC fare — which means I’ve selected four outstanding articles from a variety of publications about a variety of topics.
Today’s lead article, Can You Curate A Perfect Baby? continues my current fascination with modern trends in parenting. (No, I’m not a parent.) (Want to read more on this theme? See here, here, and here.) Julia Black from MIT Technology Review reports on the recent rise in genetic testing, even for conditions and traits once thought taboo, like intelligence. Pretty soon, Ms. Black suggests, we’ll all be ordering the best bundle of joy that money can buy.
If thinking about curating the perfect baby gives you the heebie-jeebies, I have three other articles for your consideration. They are about:
I hope at least one of the articles resonates with you. Leave a comment if you want to share your thoughts. As always, thank you for your readership and your support of Article Club. If you appreciate the newsletter, I’d be honored if you shared it with a friend or colleague. Have a great weekend ahead!
1️⃣ Can You Curate A Perfect Baby?
Deciding to have a child is one of the most important decisions of our lives. But until recently, most of us have left the outcome to chance. Now a greater percentage is participating in preimplantation genetic testing (PGT), which can detect disorders like cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, and Down syndrome. A majority of Americans find this kind of testing morally acceptable. But what about choosing your child’s sex? Or eye color? Or intelligence?
The technology is here. And for $50,000 or so, you too can partake. The problem is, Selecting embryos for intelligence reminds us of eugenics. Despite research by Kathryn Paige Harden and other scholars that suggests that genes do correlate with IQ, we want to believe that hard work, rather than raw intellect, results in academic achievement and material success.
This article does a great job exploring not only the moral questions but also the rising technology in this field. You might think baby-choosing won’t go mainstream anytime soon. But that’s what I thought two years ago about artificial intelligence.
By Julia Black • MIT Technology Review • 22 min • Gift Link
2️⃣ The Childless Aunt
Nikolina Kulidžan writes beautifully about her journey to have children in her life.
My desire to become a mother was about more than the love I had to give. It was also about greed, and a fear of death, and a search for meaning. It was a desire to be rooted to the moment by the pressing demands of another, to shape the future and leave a positive legacy, to be responsible for something beyond myself.
And it was the million imagined moments that, like a draw-by-number exercise, added up to a distinct, recognizable picture of being a mom: I wanted the sleepy snuggles of a tired child, the way their little arms lay claim to your body and their head burrows into its nooks. I wanted to grit my teeth as I watched them climb a jungle gym, then clap and say, “Bravo!” I wanted to take them to the woods rather than the mall, to pass on my love of biking and hiking and camping, to introduce them to the mellow bliss of physical exertion and the intoxicating smell of pine sap on a summer day. I wanted the awe of discovering who they are beyond my feeble attempts to shape them, the discomfort of witnessing an act of their unkindness, the wrath I’d incur by depriving them of electronic devices until they were old enough to vote. I wanted to watch them walk into the world and chart their winding path, hoping that I’d given them a compass to steer them away from treacherous cliffs and guide them through the swampland of mistakes and grief.
I wanted the knowledge that even though they would never love me with the same throbbing fervor with which I loved them, they would at least be there for me as I withered in old age.
By Nikolina Kulidžan • The Sun Magazine • 20 min • Gift Link
3️⃣ Misplaced Trust
Most of us know about our country’s history of Manifest Destiny. We understand that the United States government forcibly displaced millions of Native Americans and stole their land. One part of that process, however, I understood less, until reading this article. The Morrill Act, passed in 1862, granted federal land (that is to say, seized land) to states in order to found and fund colleges. My college, the University of California, was one land-grant college made possible by the Morrill Act. There were many others.
In this well-researched article, Tristan Ahtone explores the legacy of the law and explains how colleges continue to profit from trust lands that sometimes lie far away from the colleges themselves. These lands consist of valuable resources — like oil, gas, and minerals. Millions of dollars flow to colleges as a result. But none of the money goes directly to Native American students who attend those colleges.
By Tristan Ahtone • Grist • 22 min • Gift Link
➕ This piece reminds me of one of my favorite articles, “Land-Grab Universities,” which I featured five years ago. I just looked it up, and it’s by the same author! Maybe this means I should invite him to come do an interview with us?
4️⃣ Stone Of Hope
In elementary school, Donald Quist’s well-intentioned white teacher cast him as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for a school play. The reason? He looked like him. Or at least, sort of. “We were both Black,” Mr. Quist writes. “Both our faces were round. Maybe that was enough.” Even then, as a boy, Mr. Quist recognized that he could not live up to the ideal of MLK. When wronged, he felt anger and sought retribution. He did not immediately choose nonviolence and compassion. As a result, Mr. Quist felt shame.
But in this essay, Mr. Quist reflects on how this shame was unfounded. He explains how the civil rights leader was a real person, not a deity. He shares that MLK was not loved at the time of his assassination. He demonstrates how white moderates have shaped his legacy and diluted his message. Mr. Quist writes, “His name is used to remind people — particularly Black people — to ignore all the ways they’ve been continually struck down, unheard, and silenced.” Mr. Quist won’t have any of that.
By Donald Quist • Agni • 22 min • Gift Link
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