A group named SOBA (Science Of Behavioural Alteration) advertise for volunteers to take part in a radical new IVF treatment programme. Applicants are offered free IVF treatment and generous child maintenance payments for any babies born as a result of the programme.

Furthermore, applicants are assured that children born as part of the SOBA programme will be uniquely equipped to take on positions of great responsibility and trust when they grow up. It is hoped SOBA babies will form an elite group of politicians, judges, doctors, cardinals and professors. The public will welcome these special individuals into positions of power because they, unlike the corruptible masses, can be trusted.

The treatment is conceptually based upon Cognitive Behavioural Therapy techniques. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is a psychotherapeutic approach that aims to solve problems concerning dysfunctional emotions, behaviours and cognitions through a goal-oriented, systematic procedure. For example, if you have arachnophobia you might start a programme of CBT. Your therapist might start by repeatedly showing you pictures of spiders until you no longer experience anxiety in their presence, she might then move on to dead spiders and eventually have you holding real spiders. At first you will experience extreme anxiety, however, as you continue to experience the spider and nothing happens, your brain will learn through experience not to fear them.

In nature animals and humans have a certain amount of CBT hardwired into our genetic makeup. We learn not to touch hot objects as a child because we repeatedly get burnt when we do. This is behaviour learned through experience.

The SOBA team developed a way of genetically engineering specific behavioural therapies into the DNA sequence. The SOBA babies would develop desirable psychological traits through physical experience. They would become morally superior individuals because, just as we experience pain when we get burnt, the SOBA babies’ bodies would respond to moral transgressions.

The SOBA team aimed to be able to programme for a whole spectrum of moral transgressions eventually, yet for this first batch of children they focussed on eliminating three main ‘sins’ - greed, lust and anger.

12 Babies were born between February and August 2022. The specific ways in which the ‘sins’ had been programmed out of the children was kept strictly secret. It was argued that to diverge the specific nature of the SOBA babies’ genetic modification would be a violation of doctor–patient confidentiality. However one journalist caused huge controversy when, six years after the babies had been born he revealed the truth behind the SOBA treatment. His name was John Kent. This is what the article revealed:

GREED: The H. pylori bacteria that naturally occur in our stomachs was altered in the SOBA babies. The H. pylori was modified to respond to high concentrations of glucose. Strong sugary solutions (the type caused by excessive eating or consuming foods full of refined sugars) would cause the bacteria to produce large quantities of salicylates, a kind of natural aspirin that thins the blood. Put simply, the physical effects of eating too much cake would be bruising, rashes and nose bleeds.

LUST: The corpora cavernosa tissue in the genitals that responds to sexual stimuli by allowing an increased flow of blood to the genital area were modified be four times more receptive to signals from the autonomic nerves. When a SOBA adult becomes aroused there is a massive diversion of blood to the genital area resulting in fainting and engorged genitals.

Further more, when the body registers a loss of blood to the head, it prioritises the flow to the brain. Other areas are drained of blood to prevent brain damage. In the case of the retina, repeated loss of blood causes long term damage to the light responsive cells, so that in the case of the SOBA babies, too much masturbation really does turn you blind.

ANGER: When we raise our voice our larynx experiences an increased flow of air from the lungs, this results in a higher concentration of Carbon Dioxide around the vocal chords. In SOBA babies the cells of the cricothyroid muscle (responsible for the amount of tension experienced by the vocal chords) were altered to be responsive to increased levels of Carbon Dioxide. When the cricothyroid muscle cells are excited in this way they contract, causing a higher tension in the vocal chords and a sharp raising of the pitch of the voice. To translate: whenever a SOBA baby tried to raise their voice they could only produce a high and squeaky sound.

Kent’s article was nominated for a Pulitzer prize and caused huge public outcry. The SOBA treatment was deemed to be cruel and abusive. The government was put under huge pressure to force the SOBA programme to shut down, which it did within three months of the publication of Kent’s article. The SOBA babies and their families were given anonymity and nothing was herd of them until 14 years later, when conceptual artist Tom Crow ‘came out’ as a SOBA baby. Crow went on to win the Turner Prize with a series of highly personal and shocking works that focussed upon his genetic defects. Crow’s rise to fame prompted other SOBA babies to admit their identities. Most notably Rosie Parker, who started a political campaign aimed at outlawing all synthetic biology research.