I'm not sure I agree that modding the parents so that they will produce offspring like themselves is just like modding babies.

I suspect the dividing point in the logic is: as we're shown it, Betan sex change surgery does NOT give every cell a genetic sex change, it only grafts (mostly) cloned sex organs onto your original body, and even if they did do a full genetic change on the adults, that's still after they're adults, not when they're undergoing puberty. Whereas: first-generation *genetic* hermaphrodite babies (whether with herm or monosexual parents) would experience physiologically different, not entirely predictable childhood and puberty with possible physical health consequences. Regardless of how those kids mapped into social construct gender funtimes, even. So yeah. Would it be ethical to do genetic modification of that kind? It would really depend on how sure you could be of the results.

Wouldn't it be just as unethical to say "Fine, then anyone who wants to be a herm (or is naturally born herm) can't reproduce?"

I would also like to put that in the context of Beta's attitude about reproduction in general, which is that you have to be licensed for it.