The New York Times has reported that Leon Kass and the President’s Council on Bioethics has released Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness, a report expressing concern over the potential misuse of burgeoning biotechnology. From the Times:

The report’s overall thrust is that people’s desire to improve themselves or to give their children an edge carries the risk of putting strain on human nature in many unintended ways. The council expresses concern at "the attractive science-based power to remake ourselves after images of our own devising." It asks if the purpose of medicine is "to make us perfect, or to make us whole?" It concludes that "the human body and mind, highly complex and delicately balanced as a result of eons of gradual and exacting evolution, are almost certainly at risk from any ill-considered attempt at `improvement.’"