PARENT TRAP

Tech bros and “trads” are pushing women to have more babies. Just as long as they're the right kind of women.

- By Kiera Butler

ON A RAINY THURSDAY NIGHT IN MARCH, I showed up early to a cocktail party in a penthouse apartment of an Austin high-rise. Through floor-to-ceiling windows, I watched dusk settle over the sweep of Texas’ capital, from the bars below us to the university campus and the downtown skyline, studded with construction sites. As the first guests began to trickle in, the conversation turned, as these things do, to the ethics of gene-editing embryos to create custom babies.

“I would actually argue that the ethical questions probably aren't as big, because kids already don’t choose their genes,” said Malcolm Collins, a slight, bespectacled influencer who had helped organize the gathering. “I think that we're really close to a subculture where this is normalized—a right-wing subculture.”

His wife, Simone, busily filling bowls with chips, nodded in agreement. She was dressed for the evening in a white wide-brimmed bonnet, a peasant blouse, and an austere, calf-length black jumper; her daughter, 1-year-old Industry Americus, lounged in a carrier on her back. She and her husband, she said, were comfortable with the idea of designer babies; after all, Industry and her three older siblings, all under the age of 7, had been created with the help of a company that said it could analyze their embryos’ genetic makeup to screen for genetic illnesses, depression, and schizophrenia, as well as predict their intelligence. Yet Simone wasn't convinced that the world needed bespoke babies—the process would be too expensive, and with all the hormone shots, monitoring, and precise timing, too cumbersome to get the job done at scale. “IVF isn’t going to move the needle on birth rates,” she said.