Often in the mass media and in press releases from biotech corporations we are presented with a future in which biotech promises to be able to eradicate disease and improve health and even quality of life. I can't say whether or not drug companies wrestle with ethical extrapolations as well. Witness the controversy over, as I write this, NIH-funded research on human stem cells. Although there have been many scientific utopias about genetics, it is rare that we see attempts to imagine workable futures. In Beggars in Spain , however, we see attempts by characters to bridge the gap that has divided the Sleepless from the rest of humanity.
Genetic engineering is a long way from that.
Our first germ-line attempts will undoubtedly be to correct defective genes in an embryo, something very few people would object to. Later, and gradually, will come altering such simple things as eye color. But all this will be private. I have no idea. Her most recent book is Probability Moon , the start of a trilogy, which takes place off-World and includes such grand old SF tropes as aliens and a space war.