Robert Nozick, in what is surely one of the most intriguing and provocative footnotes in modern philosophical writing, referred in Anarchy, State and Utopia to the notion of a “genetic supermarket.” In keeping with the central arguments of that text, his suggestion was that choices about the genetic composition of future generations should, as far as possible, be left in the hands of private individuals, and should not be determined or restricted by the state. This free market in genetic screening would meet “the individual specifications (within certain moral limits) of prospective parents,” and would possess “the great virtue that it involves no centralized decision fixing the future human type(s).” In short, prospective parents would be allowed, to whatever extent was rendered possible by current technology, to choose the genetic traits of their future children.