eugenics
So long as you're not killing or compelling people, it's probably fine.
Example:
Guy is short and wants kids taller than he is so they don't grow up being teased. He marries a tall woman.
AcceptableExample:
Guy is short and wants kids to be taller than him so he goes and kills or forcefully sterilizes everyone under 5'6 so they they won't reproduce.
Not so good
Anyway, eugenics is a case of societal mass hypocrisy. Kind of like how "drugs are bad" but the majority of everyone drinks caffeinated beverages. (Oh...it's only
some drugs, is that it?)
The
eugenics programs in the US traumatized a lot of people, and so now it's socially obligatory to pretend that eugenics are bad. Just like drugs are bad. Except the ones we like and we don't call them drugs because drugs are bad.
If a woman chooses a husband or a sperm donor based on whatever arbitrary characteristic she likes: he's tall, he's handsome, he has money, he's intelligent, whatever...nobody complains much about that except the people who aren't selected. That's eugenics, but we don't
call it eugenics.
I suppose for the average person with a weak grasp of the concept would probably draw the line at social organizations acting to promote/discourage particular traits. For example, if an individual chooses to have a baby with someone who is X, even if they admit and agree that the motivation is because of X, probably most people would be ok with it. Or at least not complain very much. But the moment any organized group started promoting it, for example...if somebody were to make a sperm collection facility that only collected sperm from people with X and admitted that their motivation was to promote X, that might bother people even if X was something they personally agreed was a desirable trait.