From critic Roger Ebert’s 1997 review of the science fiction movie Gattaca, released in the same year, whose plot involves the use of genetic engineering to create designer humans:
When parents can order “perfect” babies, will they? Would you take your chances on a throw of the genetic dice, or order up the make and model you wanted? How many people are prepared to buy a car at random from the universe of all available cars? That’s how many, I suspect, would opt to have natural children.
Everybody will live longer, look better and be healthier in the Gattacan world. But will it be as much fun? Will parents order children who are rebellious, ungainly, eccentric, creative, or a lot smarter than their parents are? There’s a concert pianist in “Gattaca” who has 12 fingers. Don’t you sometimes have the feeling you were born just in time?
Quoted in The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson