Miringoff, Marque-Luisa. The Social Costs of Genetic Welfare. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1991.

Marque-Luisa Miringoff defines genetic welfare as "the desire to improve the human condition through genetic and reproductive means" (6) and in her book she documents and critiques its emergence and displacement of conventional social welfare policies. Although she does argue that this displacement does not represent the complete dominance of genetic considerations, but only their growing significance, she also points out that this new prominence represents both a shift towards a different worldview and the expression of a particular agenda in an era in which technological solutions are increasingly encouraged and expected.

At the heart of this drive for technologically developed genetic solutions to what have been conventionally conceived of as social and political problems is the profit motive. More and more we are requiring that people be "cost-effective" rather than genetic burdens prone to disease or (physical, mental, emotional or social) disability. Beside their eugenic, cleansing function, genetic solutions also happen to make their inventors, producers and proponents vast sums of money. In an already badly divided society, we can therefore predict that these technologies will serve to widen the power gulf between "haves" and "have-nots."

Miringoff does not argue that genetic welfare has succeeded in burying social welfare, however. Rather she offers a number of public policy suggestions designed to curb the influence of the biotechnology industry, and strike a balance between the competing social engineering and genetic engineering approaches. The most powerful and hopeful chord she strikes in this examination is the role she envisions for public participation in these endeavours.

See also Keller,"Nature, Nurture, and the Human Genome Project" and Lewontin, "The Dream of the Human Genome."