Barbarism with a Commercial Face

Authors: John Stonestreet and Dr. Timothy Padgett

In a recent social media post, Kian Sadeghi, the CEO of Nucleus Genomics, announced:  

Nucleus Embryo is the first-ever genetic optimization software that helps parents give their children the best possible start in life—long before they’re even born. Longevity was never just about health. It’s about thriving. That’s why this announcement also marks the first time in human history a company has openly partnered with a couple to help them optimize their embryos based on intelligence. 

Don’t be fooled. “Optimizing embryos” is slick ad campaign language, but Sadeghi is talking here about killing kids. Nucleus Genomics isn’t in the business of using genetic therapy for disease diagnosis and treatment. Its “product” is to test embryos for genetic imperfections and eliminate those embryos.  

In other words, the company sells eugenics. Their campaign material shares of the first couple to “genetically optimize an embryo” for health and intelligence by using their services. The commercial proudly describes what motivates the process:  

The question arose, which of the 20 embryos should we implant? The obvious answer . . ., we wanted to start with the one embryo that was most likely to grow up to be a healthy adult. 

They fail to mention, of course, what this means for the other 19 embryos, and as Matthew Lee Anderson noted, “. . .the end of their launch video grants that this technology has to overcome a real stigma to be accepted.” So, the company appeals to the autonomy of the consumer when it states, “Some people don’t think you should have this choice, but it’s not their choice to make: it’s yours." 

The selfishness inherent to the project is what makes it so cruel. The campaign video highlights well-cared for children, but the company doesn’t promise to give children their “best life.” It promises to give parents the best child for their life. They aren’t helping to eliminate or find a cure for dyslexia, autism, cancer, or Down Syndrome. They’re eliminating the kids with these conditions so parents don’t have to deal with such “problems.” 

In 2019, Evangelicals and Catholics Together issued a joint statement entitled, “The Gift of Children.”  

Children compel us to serve a future we cannot control. They are free beings, independent agents who eventually will supersede us, living their own lives, not echoing ours. Having children thus involves a profound surrender, and children are often cause for anxiety. 

Commercialized genetic testing only serves to commodify human beings, reducing them from persons made in God’s image to things that are for sale. A generation ago, Francis Schaeffer satirized what was then sci-fi but is now an unpleasant reality. The accompanying video to Whatever Happened to the Human Race? included a skit of a grocery shopping couple who choose between grabbing chicken soup and cleaning supplies, picking up a kid with the right color hair and eyes. Of course, more than a few dystopian science fiction films have offered similar predictions and warnings of eugenics services sold to people looking for easier, more manicured lives. 

In his 1998 book, The Way of the (Modern) World: Or, Why It's Tempting to Live As If God Doesn't Exist, Dr. Craig Gay warned of the modern mindset that prioritizes “selfish convenience.” 

For once we have reduced reality to a “world” of things and objects, which is the end-product of this convenient fiction, we can begin to exert our will over reality, and we can begin to act “as gods” within it. 

All the fancy words and attractive lifestyles promising autonomy and ease do not change the reality of abortion, eugenics, and euthanasia. By placing humans in the role of God, other humans are debased. The promises of a better life for some results in the killing of others. We should not be surprised that when people attempt to take the place of God, they begin to act like a devil. 

Resisting the barbarism sold with a commercial face demands that we recover the biblical truth about human dignity. Every single human being—no matter age, health, or stage of development—is eternally valuable because each carries the divine imprint of Imago Dei. We must not allow that essential truth to be obscured by slick ad campaigns.