Gene Therapy: A Form of Eugenics?

It's a fine line, in my opinion. What we see as diseases can easily be seen as normal human evolution. On the flip-side, what we see as unnecessary intervention into the human genome can also be seen as ridding unwanted traits, or diseases in someone's perspective.

They are practically very different, of course. Curing Leukemia through gene therapy is nowhere near the same thing as making someone faster through selective breeding, or some other form of eugenics. But from a biological standpoint, they are not so dissimilar.

The key issue here is the autonomy of the individual. I think if the autonomy is preserved, both are ethically acceptable. As was said by the person who wrote the original article, plastic surgeons affect phenotypic traits all the time. Does it really make that much of a difference if instead of having your boobs enhanced through silicon if it was through genetic engineering?