Sublime

In 1995, relatively free from the shackles of the computer screen that now demands so much of doctors’ attention, the main obstacle Weinberg faces in engaging the troubled young woman is his own willingness to do so. His leisurely conversations with her seem as quaint to us now as black bags and glass hypodermics.

A reporter named Harvey Longo wrote a story for the Los Angeles Times Magazine about the two paraplegics called “Poetic Injustice” and won a Pulitzer Prize. Science was mentioned in the article as “The genius younger brother” and “The hope of the family.”

“healthy, loving, and supportive families are crucial to nurture compassionate, ethical persons and create sane and just societies.”

But how could they be good AFs for their children if their minds could invent ideas like these?

I also worry that members of this same class of liberal parents will convince themselves, in a few years’ time, that doing just a little bit of embryonic gene editing to enhance their future child’s IQ or athletic prowess or height is not just their prerogative, but their duty. The world is spiraling out of control, they will tell themselves.

Descriptions like Nuland’s convinced me that such things could be known only face-to-face.

To Michelle Kane. I can never thank you enough for introducing me to the term “refresh blister” and for caring as much about this book as I do.