To an accusation that I am playing god, I will reply “There are no gods. What else do you have?”

Competitive pressures from other governments will continue to push us all toward augmenting human performance in every possible way. Therefore it is inevitable.

Isn't there a chance that all the choices made might have occured naturally, anyway? Small but non-zero?

I chose my mate (husband) without regard to future genetic contributions, as I had no desire for children at that point. Now, looking back, I will state that we made smart and good-looking children, but, damn, my sons are losing their hair. It is allegedly a sex-link trait from mother, but the males in my family ALL have/had hair, and my sons look like their father, grandfathers, and great grandfathers in the hair department. As for an atheist's argument on gene editing? If we could make some choices, especially about health issues (or hair loss), I would be all for it. It is not about "playing god", it is about the future of our species!

It is not necessarily gene editing itself, but how it is likely to be used. It might work itself out eventually over time, but initially gene editing and designer babies will only be affordable by the rich. If you think we suffer from class disparity now, just wait until gene editing becomes the privilege of the wealthy privileged power elite to more or less clone themselves through their children (only a little better). Just imagine a country dominated by a thousand Trump clones and you'll get the gist of the danger. And it is also quite possible that the wealthy power elite will never allow the lower classes to enjoy the advantages of designer babies in order to maintain their hold on power. In other words, the world of designer babies may well be more dystopian than utopian. What do think will think become of the rest of us? If we do in up in such a dystopian world of the privileged genetically superior it may takes centuries to recover...if at all.

I think the reason is ignorance. Genes often do several things, and scientists are ignorant of too many effects caused by gene changes, in general. They aren't sure how many genes exist; the estimate is currently 20000, but was originally 100000.

It would be good to use these tools in order to get rid of inheritable diseases, but I'm sure it won't stop there. Even if enhancement modifications were globally banned, I have no doubt that wealthy people would seek out and find people willing to break that ban. Plus, governments would likely put it to use, especially their military. Then again... the rich and governments are going to do this anyway, and might already be doing so.

Maybe its widespread use is inevitable. So maybe at some point we should make a concerted effort to modify-out diseases, but it should be made available to all, and not just those who can afford it. Perhaps as long as we keep enhancement modifications banned, its effects will be limited and not societal-changing.

You could create virtually 2 different species, with the elite having the money to edit out disease and bad traits, and the poor having the bad genes.
Imagine this associated with no privacy, basically a company won't even hire you if you are not from the genetic perfect class.

I don't have enough information to have any opinion, other than research is the only way to know.