The New Orchard
Playing God with Alex Story
Title: Playing God Subtitle: Fatherhood, Down Syndrome and the New Eugenics Guest: Alex Story Modern medicine has given us extraordinary power. We can detect genetic conditions before birth, edit DNA with increasing precision and make decisions that previous generations could scarcely imagine. Yet every technological advance brings a new moral question. Just because we can, does it mean we should? In this thought-provoking conversation, Olympic rower, businessman and writer Alex Story reflects on the birth of his son with Down syndrome and how fatherhood transformed not only his marriage and family life, but his understanding of what it means to be human. What began as a deeply personal journey led Alex into the forgotten history of eugenics, the life and legacy of Margaret Sanger, prenatal screening, CRISPR gene editing and one of the defining ethical questions of our time: who gets to decide which lives are worth living? In this interview we explore: • How raising a son with Down syndrome reshaped Alex's understanding of love, responsibility and fatherhood. • The forgotten history of the eugenics movement and why its assumptions may not have disappeared. • Margaret Sanger, birth control and the uneasy relationship between compassion, technology and social engineering. • Prenatal screening, embryo selection and the ethical challenges posed by modern genetics. • Whether technological progress has outpaced our moral wisdom. • Why human dignity cannot be reduced to intelligence, productivity or genetic "fitness." As our scientific power continues to grow, perhaps the defining question of the twenty-first century is no longer what we are capable of doing, but whether we possess the wisdom to know what we ought to do. If you enjoy long-form conversations exploring civilisation, philosophy, culture, technology, Christianity and the moral challenges shaping our future, subscribe to The New Orchard and share this episode with someone who enjoys learning and thoughtful discussions. Links and interview references: The Critic - https://thecritic.co.uk/author/alex-story/ GB News - https://www.gbnews.com/authors/alex-story/ Country Squire Magazine - https://countrysquire.co.uk Think Scotland - https://thinkscotland.org/author/alex-story/ The Conservative Woman - https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk Books: Thomas Sowell - A Conflict of Visions and The Quest forCosmic Justice C.S. Lewis - The Abolition of Man Jacques Ellul - The Technological Society
