When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he declared that "all men were created equal". Today we know that he meant to include women, minorities, and the poor in that description. The statement is often used in legislation to address violations of civil rights. This will likely be the biggest challenge of gene therapy, which looks beneficial on the surface, but will only be affordable for the upper class- mostly rich, white, and male.
The greatest benefit of gene therapy is that many genetically transmitted diseases could be reduced, and that's probably all it should be used for. If not, I would expect lawsuits like the kind performance-enhancing drugs brought for athletes. Only this would be on a higher level, because selection would be based on class discrimination. In the Center for Genetics and Society podcast, Marcy Darnovsky stated "we already have such shocking levels of inequality and such shocking patterns of discrimination... we would suddenly be living in a world where people of means could have children who are... biologically superior to the un-engineered..." I think the key is getting governments to allow gene therapy only for medical purposes and not for self-enhancement.
An additional problem is that if everyone could afford to select traits for their children, odds are they would be picking the same ones (intelligent, tall, athletic). There would be very few deformities among children in future generations. Yet if you pay careful attention to evolution, you will notice that it's the deformities that allow species to adapt to changing environments and mutate into something else. If we all had similar traits, there would be less genetic variation for natural selection to keep the chain of life going in the event of an extinction.
Source: https://www.geneticsandsociety.org/internal-content/designer-babies-crispr-genetic-engineering
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