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    Idealistically, a world free of congenital diseases would be a miraculous one, but the means needed to create such a world are far too severe to partake in. First, people have to decide what congenital diseases the world will be better without, and then comes the question of who is allowed or not allowed to reproduce. And does anyone have the right to restrict the ability of someone else’s reproductive success? In the past, the United States was home to a world of eugenics. According to the nature.com article on Eugenics, the American movement took place in the early 1900’s. In theory, the idea of selecting more desirable traits to rid of certain diseases sounds like a relatively good idea, until you take into consideration the means at which this would be accomplished. The eugenics movement involved many cases of involuntary sterilization and institutionalization. During this movement, we lacked the vast knowledge of genetics and genomes, so they believed certain qualities such as alcoholism, “criminality”, “feeblemindedness”, and epilepsy were traits that possessed a great genetic basis, which is not wholly the case. Also, if these were the traits thought to be undesired, which there are likely many good reasons one might not want to possess them, one can only imagine what type of traits might be considered undesirable now. In the 30’s, race was a relatively big factor in the eugenics movement. Many black families were sterilized or institutionalized, and who’s to say that within today's cultural turmoil, a similar thing might not occur? There’s not a clear line between one person might consider desirable or undesirable, a decision could not be justly drawn. Although we have greatly expanded our knowledge on genetics and natural selection since the eugenics movement, some attitudes against desirable traits may have not evolved as much, and as a result we might face a similar fight over what is or isn’t ethical in terms of selecting who can and cannot reproduce.  In the knowgenetics.org article about current day eugenics, this similar issue arises. If a certain disease if common within one ethnic group, then how do we screen all people of this ancestry without it turning into something that targets the well being of an entire population? Testing entire races might bring into play harsh stereotypes and biases against these people, as a result of testing that some people might have never wanted to be a part of. For all the good this potential genetic testing might do, I believe there will be too much ethical, political, and social backlash that will cause more harm to society than something such as down syndrome or congenital heart disease ever would.