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Yes, and as long as we openly call it debased, I'm mostly satisfied. It's the push to see it as a good thing that bothers me.
No it's not! Degeneracy is a spectrum. Cheating on your partner is debased, partaking in crazy Eyes Wide Shut orgies is more debased, and surrogacy is so far off on the spectrum you'd astronomical units to measure the distance.
Ah yes, surrogacy isn't spicy enough, let's add eugenics to the discussion.
Well, yes, eugenics should be an integral part of this discussion. Frankly, humanity is in dysgenic freefall at this moment in history. I don’t share all of @TracingWoodgrains’ moral priors, but I share his fundamental outlook about the vital importance of making not only more humans, but better humans. Humans who can transcend the entropic baseline and achieve iterative and intentional improvements.
This will, I believe, necessarily involve something that satisfies at least certain definitions of “eugenics”. It might not be babies born in factory vats, á la Brave New World, or meticulous culling of non-engineered bloodlines like Gattaca. (Both of which are, at heart, mawkish failures to engage in any serious way with the upsides of the societies they purport to depict.) It could be as simple as: every poor family gets to raise children, but they might end up raising other people’s biological children. I can try and provide a more comprehensive picture of what that might look like if you want, although I’m certain you already find it monstrous and I don’t know how worthwhile the conversation would be.
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