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I was thinking about the same thing. I heard this story about a year ago on NPR about how parents are beginning to select for certain genes in their children-to-be. The story first explained this through a couple that had a child with a rare genetic disease that died within a few weeks of its birth, so when they decided to try to have children again they selected for an embryo that didn't have this disease. (Would that be considered unnatural selection?) This made sense to me, and I thought, "Wow! Here's an example of science being used for great things!" But later in the story, the reporter said that couples might start using this for what I thought were more artificial reasons...I don't remember exactly what they were, but they were things like hair color, height, and speculations about athletic abilities, etc. Then I thought, "This is preposterous!"

Now that I think about it, though, I'm not sure why it is exactly that I have such drastically different reactions to the two. I believe abortion should be available to women, but think it is her personal choice. So shouldn't I feel that "designer genes" should be available but a personal choice?

The "designer genes" idea just seems so unnatural, like it might create an army of robots. But if it's a change inflicted by a species (despite the aid of science) couldn't it still be considered natural selection?