In the April 2004 edition of The Atlantic Monthly, Michael J. Sandel asks "What's wrong with designer children, bionic athletes and genetic engineering"—with creating perfect humans, or "super humans",  through human enhancement technologies?

If the ability and technology to genetically enhance such traits as memory, intelligence, muscularity, and strength were safe and available to all, why do people say they would raise objections to using such technologies? Why do they say they feel uncomfortable with the idea of reproductive technologies that allow people to choose (or even "create") designer babies with the specific traits they would like? Why are they uncomfortable with the idea of women aborting fetuses they know are genetically predisposed to short stature, dyslexia, homosexuality, or lack of musical ability?

Sandel systematically evaluates each of the arguments people routinely give for why they feel uncomfortable with human enhancement technologies: poor people can't afford them and would be left behind; we'd lose an appreciation of individual effort and talent; there would be uncontrolled competition between people who'd want to be "better" [genetically] enhanced than the next guy. Sandel finds each of these arguments wanting. Instead, he cuts to the heart of the matter and outlines the real reasons he thinks people raise moral objections to the idea of human perfection by technology:

1. Losing the sense of life as a gift. In terms of parents wanting the genetic best for their kids, Sandel writes: "The problem lies in the hubris of the designing parents, in their drive to master the mystery of birth. Even if this disposition did not make parents tyrants to their children, it would disfigure the relation between parent and child and deprive the parent of the humility and enlarged human sympathies that an openness to the unbidden can cultivate" (p. 57). He continues: the "hyperparenting familiar in our time represents an anxious excess of mastery and dominion that misses the sense of life as a gift" (p. 58). Consequences of missing the sense of life as a gift:
    
   1. We would become even more intolerant of ambiguity, tentativeness, unexpectedness, surprise, etc.
   2. We would become even more rejecting of anything or anyone that's not perfect or that's different.
   3. We would become intolerant of our own kids, expecting constant perfection from them (where genetic engineering can't create such perfection). We might think, "Look, I've given my kid all the benefits and advantages in the world... Now he has to show some gratitude and aim for perfection in other areas of his life. He owes this to me. He owes it to himself."
   4. We would come to see life as a controllable machine or enterprise—thereby absentmindedly forgetting how fragile it is. We end up taking risks that put our lives in danger (not just in terms of genetic engineering but more generally in our day-to-day business).
2. From a religious standpoint, losing the sense of life as a gift "would be to confuse our role with God's ... To believe that our talents and powers are wholly our own doing or to misunderstand our place in creation" (p. 60).
3. From a more secular standpoint, the tendency towards perfection would drives the tendency towards uncontrollable hubris. We would come to feel that we could control every single aspect of life.
4. We would end up tinkering with things we know little about.
5. Responsibilities would shift. If, for example, kids have trouble in school, then parents will bear the full responsibility—because they haven't chosen the genes that would confer the greatest intelligence on their children.
6. Society would ultimately come to lack a sense of solidarity. What underlies society's belief in helping others is the idea that "the natural talents that enable the successful to flourish are not their own doing but rather their good fortune—a result of the genetic lottery. If our genetic endowments are gifts, rather than achievements for which we claim credit, it is a mistake and a conceit to assume that we are entitled to the full measure of the bounty they reap in a market economy. We therefore have an obligation to share this bounty with those who, through no fault of their own, lack comparable gifts" (p. 62). This saves us, says Sandel, from becoming a smug society in which the rich feel the poor are more deserving of eugenic repair than they are of charity. In essence, society would feel less badly for the poor because their misfortunes would be seen as having less to do with bad luck than with choices that were made along the way.

So, perfection doesn't seem to be all it's cracked up to be. It does, indeed, have some frightening consequences.