It's the year 2050. Our understanding of the human genome, and our ability to manipulate it, have reached the point that we can both treat genetically based diseases and we can enhance many genetically based traits, including mathematical intelligence, musical ability, and athleticism. We can also manipulate more mundane traits: eye color, hair color, height, skin pigmentation, baldness, and so on.

Some entrepreneurial geneticists are looking to cash in on the new technologies; several companies exist that enable a couple to conceive via IVF and then select the most promising of the embryos that are created. For an extra fee, geneticists will tweak an embryo's genetic code to meet its parents' specifications. (Some of the traits can't be absolutely guaranteed, but the science is good enough that a person who pays for a mathematically enhanced embryo can be quite confident that the child who results will, in fact, have a propensity for math.) Those who want a tall, blonde, mathematically savvy, athletic daughter can have oneif they can afford to pay for her. Those who can't pay are stuck with the same genetic lottery that produced all of us.

Federal legislation has been proposed that would make such enhancements illegal in the United States. The key language in the bill reads this way: Manipulation of the genetic code of any individual human organism shall be permitted only for purposes deemed to be therapeutic. Genetic manipulation with the goal of "enhancement," including, but not limited to, producing above-average levels of intelligence or athletic ability, or for cosmetic purposes, is strictly forbidden and punishable by law.