1. Seven ways of making people better : The genetic challenge ; The best babies ; Deaf embryos ; Saviour siblings ; Reproductive cloning ; Enbryonic stem cells ; Gene therapies ; Considerable life extension ; The questions
2. Rational approaches to the genetic challenge : Six authors, three approaches ; Rational tangibility: Glover and Harris ; Moral transcendence: Kass and Sandel ; Everybody's acceptance: Habermas and Green ; Why none of the approaches is the one ; A nonconfrontational notion of rationality ; Equilibria, equipoises, and polite bystanders ; Plan for the rest of the book
3. The best babies and parental responsibility : From infanticide to embryo selection and beyond ; Parental responsibility as seen by Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Mill ; Disregard and givenness ; Knowledge and moderation ; Procreative beneficence as a duty ; Arithmetical rationality ; Assumed parental roles ; Moral limits ; Parental rationalities
4. Deaf embryos, morality, and the law : Deafness as a test case ; Techniques and their uses ; Case, options, and stands ; Moral case for the 'medical view' ; Moral case for the 'social view' ; Case for legal permissiveness ; The instability of the situation ; Moral case for the 'medical view' reconsidered ; Moral case for the 'social view' reconsidered ; Towards a nondirective compromise ; The nondirective compromise ; Contested rationalities
5. Saviour siblings and treating people as a means : Facts and regulations ; The logic of the case ; What could justify invasive procedures? ; Why would noninvasive procedures be a problem? ; Rational consent and genetic privacy ; Means, mere means, and outcomes ; Means, individuals, and values ; Green's three readings of Kant ; Ends and means: two different principles? ; Saving rationalities.

6. Reproductive cloning and designing human beings : An almost universal condemnation ; Distinctions and politics ; The case for cautious progress ; Arguments for the absolute prohibition ; Lack of limits and defective individuals ; Asexual reproduction and distorted families ; Project of mastery and misshapen communities ; Loss of mystery and perverted societies ; Forsaken self-understanding and a confused species ; Design for a transhuman world ; Cloning rationalities
7. Embryonic stem cells, vulnerability, and sanctity : What, why, and how regulated? ; Alternatives and conjectures ; Connections with ethical challenges ; Would women be unnecessarily used? ; Would women be unfairly used? ; Would women be wrongfully used? ; The destruction of embryos is always wrong ; The destruction of embryos is never wrong ; The destruction of embryos is sometimes wrong ; Embryonic rationalities
8. Gene therapies, hopes, and fears : Trials and errors ; Somatic and germ-line interventions ; Therapies and enhancements ; Construing benefits and harms ; Defining values ; Technological optimism and pessimism ; Technological determinism and voluntarism ; Precaution, fear, and hope ; Therapeutic rationalities
9. Considerable life extension and the meaning of life : Mortality and ageing ; Towards considerable longevity ; Identity beyond considerable longevity ; How morality benefits individuals ; How freedom to choose benefits individuals ; From individual immortality to social transcendence ; Natural morality and the meaning of life ; Immortal rationalities
10. Taking the genetic challenge rationally : From challenges to solutions ; Basic tenets and their interpretations ; Arguments that cut both ways ; Arguments for and against ; What is required of a complete case? ; Measuring the challenge ; Sensing the challenge ; Negotiating the challenge ; The methods of genethics ; Taking the genetic challenge nonconfrontationally.