Eugenics is the scientific study of improving the human gene pool through selective breeding. Today, with advances in biotechnology and genetic engineering coming faster and faster, I would also include such technologies as integral and valuable parts of a modern eugenics program.

• It is cruel to allow those with serious genetic defects to breed

  Here we are talking about those who themselves are healthy but possess the genes that can lead to debilitating conditions in their children, such as cystic fibrosis or Down's syndrome. In the first case it may seem cruel to forbid license to the parents to try for a child - they are capable of raising one and may dearly wish to do so. However, letting them go ahead with the genetic lottery is far crueller - better not to try in the first place than to try and fail, ending up with the loss of a life, something which has no place in any moral eugenics movement. Until such time as hereditary diseases can be detected and corrected, such people should instead opt for adoption of healthy, genetically strong children.

• It is cruel to allow spastics to breed

  Spastics on the other hand, are quite simply not capable of raising a child. Indeed, they are incapable of even understanding the potential consequences of having sex, and for someone with limited mental capabilities, being impregnated must be hugely upsetting and confusing. The child itself will almost certainly carry and show the same deficienes, leading to a perpetuating cycle of misery and public health burden. Any caring person can see that in this case, sterilisation of spastics allows them to continue leading as normal a lifestyle as they can without the burden a child would place.

• It is cruel to allow the poor to breed

  Already cities across the world heave with the starving masses, and millions are moving into the city every day. Increasing populations have led to a rise in territorial and sectarian violence, and in a thousand bloody conflicts refugees have fled their traditional homes and looked to the city as a refuge. Unfortunately, even in the richest nations of the Western world, there is only so much in the way of resource to go around and many lead lives of poverty and suffering. Is it right that these people, no matter how good their intentions are (remember what paves the road to Hell!), be allowed to inflict their misery and squalor upon an innocent child?

  No, it is not. To bring a child into the world without the means to support it is wrong, and these people should not be able to breed.

• It is cruel to allow a child to be inferior

  With a finite amount of resources and an ever-increasing population to compete over these, your child needs every advantage they can get to ensure they can seize as much of the pie as possible. Allowing the laws of genetics to have their way can equally result in a genius, an athlete or a simpleton. We use technology in every other way to cheat Na