There is growing concern that falling fertility rates will lead to economic and demographic catastrophe. The social and political movement known as pronatalism looks to combat depopulation by encouraging people to have as many children as possible. But not just any kind of children.
While pronatalists advocate for progressive social policies that may incentivize childbearing, like free childcare, high profile figures in tech, like Coinbase co-founder Brian Armstrong, OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman, and entrepreneur-turned-government advisor Elon Musk, are seeking to optimize for the “best” babies possible. They are turning to novel assisted reproductive genetic technologies to do so, including polygenic embryo selection. … Companies offer genetic testing for traits ranging from health conditions like heart disease to, more controversially, behavioral traits like intelligence.
The technologies that are being financed and used by tech-elite pronatalists are new. The push to have as many babies as possible and the best babies possible is not new. The agenda of these techno-optimist pronatalists bears a striking resemblance to America’s 20th century eugenics movement and the Better Babies contests that were a part of it.
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