Is Designing Babies Unethical—or a Moral Imperative?

Honestly with Bari Weiss

The Free Press

News, Society & Culture

4.6 • 7.8K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2025

⏱️ 85 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

All parents know what goes into raising children: the time spent changing diapers in inopportune places; the hours of worrying—about what to feed them, how to educate them, how to protect them and keep them healthy; the countless hours devoted to dance classes, summer camps, pediatricians, and piano lessons—all investments meant to give them the best chance in life. Most of us would do anything to help our kids become the most successful and happiest versions of themselves. But what if we could start earlier? At the molecular level. What if we could ensure our babies were healthier, smarter, and stronger, before they even took their first breath? To make tweaks to our own embryos in order to “optimize” them. This isn’t something out of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. It’s the very real, and near, future. And it raises profound and critical questions. So we hosted a debate: Is it ethical to design our unborn children? And are we morally obligated to do so when the risks of abstaining include serious diseases? Or does designing babies cross a line? Is it wrong to play God and manipulate humanity’s genetic heritage? The Free Press is honored to have partnered with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression to present this debate. Head to TheFire.org to learn more about this indispensable organization Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today's episode is brought to you by the foundation for individual rights and expression,
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0:55.4	thefire.org slash honestly today. Again, that's thefire.org slash honestly.
1:04.8	From the free press, this is Honestly and I'm Barry Weiss. Three years ago, Nellie and I became parents, and now we spend a lot of time changing diapers in inopportune places and a lot of hours doing something we didn't do as much before. And that is worrying. Worrying about what to feed them, how to educate them, how to protect them, how to keep them healthy.
1:32.7	They're babies, and yet I'm already thinking about the best summer camps, pediatricians, piano lessons,
1:36.7	all investments meant to give them the best chance in life.
1:43.1	I would do anything as any parent would to help my children become the most successful and happiest version of themselves.
1:45.8	But what if I could start earlier, at the molecular level?
	...

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