Dutch Designer Babies The Dutch public debate from prewar eugenics to present-day biotechnology

Abstract

Does history repeat itself? The recently developed biotechnology CRISPR-Cas9 has caught the eye of the public. This promising technique brings along fear of so-called designer babies and genetically enhanced humans. Critics of CRISPR have compared its goals to the controversial early twentieth century eugenics movement. This thesis explores the current public debate on CRISPR as well as the early twentieth century debate on eugenics in the Netherlands, to answers the question: to what degree does present-day debate around CRISPR-Cas9 resemble the eugenics debate that occurred in the early nineteenth century? The research consists of one historical and one contemporary study of newspaper articles by using digitalized newspaper databases. Whereas both debates differ in several aspects due to scientific developments and reduced Catholic influence, the first may have been of influence on the second. It seems that fears of resembling eugenics has lead the current public debate on CRISPR to abstain from speculating on the population level consequences of applying the technique.