To Genome or Not to Genome, It Isn't Even A Question

There were too many Rheem water heaters to count, but they lined the laboratory exterior. Piping went from the heaters into the walls, and through them. The geneticist paused, stared at the Senator, and they went into the lab. Cylindrical tanks filled the room, evenly spread out. They looked like the exotic fish tanks you might see in some law firm lobby.

No fish in these tanks, just fetuses. Homo sapiens fetuses.

The human genome had already been sequenced, the Doctor explained, but still not decoded. The protein folding problem would take time, but would be solved. Sequencing genomes had become much cheaper, dropping as computer prices had. Homo sapiens could now have their DNA sequenced for the cost of bargain vacation cruise.

There were serious social problems. No one wanted their genome public, a major confidentiality issue. Genetic discrimination by insurance companies was growing. Spouses were starting to demand a review of a mate's genome prior to marrying. Abortions when fetus genomes were found to have birth defects were also becoming common.

Blind comparative analysis had made such things possible, for better or worse, but there still wasn't a true understanding of how life is created. If you cross referenced the genomes of millions of people, and meticulously recorded their physical traits, you could deduce the function of some genes by simply correlating variations with traits.

If 1,000 subjects all had red hair and you compared their genes, only some were similar, and one of these or several of these caused red hair. Such brute force comparative analysis applied to thousands of traits could decode many traits, but many felt it could completely decode the genome. This had always been a myth. As the notion that anything but human experimentation would decode the genome also was.

So you'd compared the genomes of 1,000,000 redheads and narrowed it done to a couple dozen genes. How did you determine the one that caused redheadedness. Maybe there was some gene that worked in synchronization with the gene you'd found. You couldn't know for sure, unless you experimented. Changed the gene in a fetus, and saw if it was still born redheaded.

That was the whole point of this lab. The gene that caused Tay Sachs had been found, these fetuses had been altered to see if it was in fact the right gene.

Even if the babies were in fact cured, they would never be allowed to live. A fish tank wasn't a womb, and there something intangible and as yet unquantifiable about being raised in a womb that was important to mental health. Children also needed to be educated and reared by parents, and these experiments had no parents. When only physical traits needed to be tested, killing a baby after the trait was confirmed made sense, but that would not be possible once more ambiguous mental traits were investigated. Presently, children were locked in cages like Tyson chickens, denied all human action, and offed once the desired trait manifested. Without any human interaction whatsoever, they were basically animals with stunted brain development regardless. Killing them was an act of compassion.

As they exited the lab, and once again passed the long row of Rheem water heaters which independently controlled the temperature of each artificial womb, a gurney filled with dead children rolled by. All red headed.