Biotechnology: Designer Babies

In 1932, Aldous Huxley imagined and wrote about a world where designer baby technology is prevalent in his science-fiction novel, Brave New World. The technology would not come until many years later, but his ideas still hold up today. In the book, there were different classes depending on how genetically modified one was, including Alpha or Beta (“The Public Should Oppose Designer Baby Technology”). Outside of science fiction, though, is real science where an actual baby can be genetically modified before even being born. A designed baby is one that is purposefully shaped to be one way or another through processes including In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), where an egg is fertilized and genetically altered, and preimplantation genetic diagnosis

Many great things can be accomplished through genetic engineering, but scientific progress is being halted by the opposition 's use of arguments with questionable logic. Most notably is their fear of designer babies. The problem with designer babies is that complex beneficial traits such as height, strength, intelligence, and attractiveness aren’t determined by one gene, and are also dependent on many other variables that aren’t genetic. Some traits such as the shape of an earlobe, eye color, or an individual’s susceptibility to certain diseases are determined by a single gene, and that specific gene can be identified and isolated by scientists. Professor of translational epidemiology at Emory University, Cecile Janssens states, “Even when all genes and their complex interactions are completely understood, our ability to use gene editing for favorable traits will remain limited because human traits are just not genetic enough.” (Janssens). This would mean that giving an unfair advantage to a so called designer baby would be impossible, because we are unable know if these traits are entirely genetic, let alone isolate and edit them. Another hole in the opposition 's logic is the idea of a fetus needing consent to be genetically modified on. If it’s amoral for a fetus to undergo a process such as genetic modification in order to make it healthy, then it must also be wrong to give baby medicine, vaccines, or surgery. The opposition also commonly thinks that genetic

Genetic engineering in humans is a recent development that gives parents the option to design their idea of a perfect baby. The idea of “perfect babies” will lead to designer babies. The term designer babies refers to using biotechnology to choose what type of baby you want. The traits that can be changed in these babies are gender, appearance, intelligence, disease, and personality. Changing these traits can cause many problems and can affect society, the family, and the baby. Society could be affected because the designer babies could create a gap in society and only the wealthy people will be able to afford it. The other children in the family could be affected by the parent's decision. This procedure could also lead to the termination of

There are religious, ethnic and cultural biases in our society that are the main cause and lead to non-healthy choices in designer babies.

They succeeded in change the character of their child before he born, although it looked it is not good for their child by public. There is no denying that the eugenics realized the dream of them—“select” the child they want. There

Over two thousand years ago, Plato wrote in his work Republic ideas about selective breeding, a concept that seemed, at the time, like something akin to science fiction. Millennia later, science fiction became science fact as a new form of science emerged, combining the principles of heredity with social values of human perfection: eugenics. Eugenics can be defined as the process of enhancing future generations through the perpetuation of positive heritable characteristics and the termination of those heritable characteristics deemed negative (“Eugenics”). The status of eugenics has, over time, oscillated, but despite this, aspects of its ideology endure to this day.

Two contentions in opposition to my claim would be declarations that preimplantation genetic diagnosis can lead to the controversial ‘designer babies,’ and that PGD is unnatural. Designer babies are future, science-fictional, and would be genetically altered to be beautiful, without illness or disease, and highly intelligent. It is a media-hyped topic with more fiction than science. These people think about the topic differently than I, as they are not yet caught up on the progress of the field. According to Carole Wegner, “Frankly, we don’t know which genes to pick, if we could pick them and how and when to turn them on etc etc.

Today, we live in 21st century where everything is modern and modernization is linked up with scientific discoveries and invention. With the modernization, we had done many discoveries in different fields and now we also had made many discoveries about human body. These discoveries in human body also give us ability to modify the genes and change it as we want it to be.

Through bio-technology parents choose the genes of their children and attempt to replace the creators design. D’Souza quotes leading techno-utopian Lee Silver who states, “The human mind is much more than the genes that brought it into existence” (D’Souza, 2010, para. 17). In changing the child’s genetics, bio-technology changes the child’s entire future existence. The parents determine the traits the child will exhibit and their capabilities. However, the human mind is vast and expands beyond the limitations of the genes which brought it into being.

An ethical dilemma can be defined as a complex situation, which involves moral and societal conflicts. The creation of designer babies can potentially be considered an ethical problem because of how conflicting the situation is. For example, many people from all different backgrounds and age groups have many conflicting views about the ideas of genetic engineering. An ethical dilemma can be more perplexing, or difficult to come up with exactly one right solution because there are many options and different solutions that can be taken into account to solve the problem.

Today I realize that the different countries have been using these horrible techniques on our children. Many people think that this technology is not available to us yet, but that is not true. Actually the U.K. opens up to these new techniques of designer babies in their country and actually funds for it. Many other countries disagree with these techniques but some

Essay #1: Designer Babies Imagine a perfect human with desirable traits like intelligence, beauty, and strength. Would it not be ideal for society as a whole to have all individuals exhibit these traits? Although the implications of designer babies for health benefits are crucial, there are many downfalls of genetic enhancements. First of all, if the whole society decided on genetic enhancements, it would mean extreme social gaps between the rich and poor, and the extinction of individualism. On the other hand, people argue that the ability to detect genetic mutations and cure generations of diseases is worth it.

Ever heard of designer babies, ever thought wow that sounds awesome, or I would love a designer baby. But have you ever thought about how it could harm your baby or hurt you? Well, sometimes it’s ok to give what god gave people no matter what. The things people can change about your baby is their The gender of the baby, The outward looks of the baby ,Reduce the baby’s chances of falling sick or getting affected with a particular disease, Change the baby’s overall personality, After and improve the baby’s overall levels of intelligence. If we can should we? This is the question I’m asking. Why would Americans do that to a human being.

Current times suggest, people are already concerned about their appearance; height, weight and beauty. This is leading people towards technology and science to change their features, which is the process of plastic surgery. In the future Non-designer babies would be treated unfairly due to their imperfections. These children would be missing out on opportunities such as education, jobs, and overall acceptance in society. Designer babies could also a put a gap in society, with them being the best looking, smarter, prettier. Society could become “designer babies” vs. “non-designer babies”. There would be more discrimination against the mentally disabled with more designer babies

I chose the topic designer babies because it is a very controversial topic and was very interesting. PGD stands for pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. It is a procedure in which a woman's eggs are gathered, fertilized in a dish (through in-vitro fertilization), and then tested for genetic defects. If defects are found, the embryos are destroyed (Hoekema, 2015). Though this procedure can be used to select the gender of a child (gender selection), it was never meant for this purpose, and many physicians will not use it for such (Hoekema, 2015). There are different types of choosing your child’s gender. Using in vitro fertilization techniques, doctors remove eggs from the woman and fertilize them with sperm in the lab to create embryos.