I have to be honest. I've never really liked non-fiction books. They've just never caught my interest before. However, Brave New World Revisited interested me, mainly the chapter titled "Quantity, Quality, Morality."
While in Brave New World, the society can pair biologically superior or biologically inferior ova and sperm to create citizens that fit the requirements for each caste. While there are other factors when creating these people (the Bokanovsky Process, alcohol, protein poisons, etc.), it ensures that the people are to the society's standards. As Aldous Huxley said, "in our random and unregulated way we are not only over-populating our planet, we are also, it would seem, making sure that these greater numbers shall be of biologically poorer quality."
While in today's society, we can help people born with certain illnesses or defects, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be more careful. It seems like, everywhere you turn, more and more women are having babies, whether these children were planned or not. These women have no idea if their children are going to have any birth defects or illnesses. The only thing that these people can do is hope that their child will be born healthy, if the doctors cannot catch the defect before the child's born.
However, not all of these new lives can be cared for properly. Some cannot be fed, clothed, or housed properly. It's sad to think about, since we are fed, clothed, and housed properly. To think of children, and even people our own age, that can't have basic necessities is almost unthinkable.
That idea is probably one of Huxley's more controversial, for certain. My main fear with so very many people on the planet is the fact that there is an ever greater need for folks to be socially (and well as individually) responsible. Yet the cultural ethos seems to be that young people are less and less responsible. It's a scary equation!
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