I'll Have a Green Eyed Baby Boy With Brown Hair, Hold the Chest Hair Please.

Hmm, getting to pick whether or not you child has a genetic disease or not? Okay. Choosing weather what gender my child is? Okay. Choosing what hair or eye color my child has? Okay now, THAT’S too far. “Designer Babies” may be a very quickly growing topic in the scientific world, but ethically, is it really worth it? I’m all for it if its insuring that the new born children have no genetic diseases, and I’m willing to go as far as choosing gender, but choosing cosmetic traits like hair and eye color? Now that’s just wrong. If anything like that were to happen, imagine how little diversity there would be in the world, since people would only pick the traits that they want for their children. A funny way of looking at it is comparing babies with Mr. Potato Head toys. Instead of letting nature chose what your babies is going to look like you more or less just take whatever you want a put it on to your baby, just like a Mr. Potato Head toy.

Scientists have recently come up with a form of screening embryos for genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis and Down syndrome. To do this they go through a process called InVitro Fertilization. A process in which eggs are combined with sperms in “test tubes” outside of the mothers body and monitored and checked to insure not distinguishable genetic disorders are present in the embryo. Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis is the process where they select only the disease free cells and implant them back into the mother womb. This part is like taking all the Mr. Potato Head pieces you have, and throwing away all the deformed and badly manufactured parts, and keeping only the parts that you need. There is also a process called germ line therapy which replaces the faulty DNA in embryos with healthy DNA. The DNA removed in germ line therapy would be the DNA that courses genetic disorders. However this process is illegal while gene cell therapy, changing the faulty DNA in grown organisms, a equally dangerous and less effective method, is legal.

New InVitro Fertilization specialist report that the results of their work yield an almost 100% success rate, and that some time in the near future they will be able to sustain technology capable of yielding steady results on increasing the likeliness of certain hair and eye color. However the cost of getting a designer baby is close to $20 000! this would mean that only the higher portion of society would be able to afford designer babies. Here is a video that sums up the results of the ethical challenges designer babies would pose, and just how it would challenge society.

Designer babies pose a very big ethical question into society. I believe that using InVitro Fertilization technology and Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnostics are only good when used for non cosmetic purposes, like insuring children do not have genetic disorders and even insure your baby is the gender of choice. What it all comes down to really is a matter of ethics and personal beliefs. Some may argue that I am going too far by saying the gender selection is okay, some may say that I am not going far enough. Designer babies is a very controversial topic that involves self inquiry and research for one to full form and educated opinion on it. For me, I’ll just say using the techno logy for cosmetic purposes is unethical and should not be practiced.