The scientific term “designer baby” refers to a baby whose genetic makeup has been artificially selected by genetic engineering combined with in-vitro fertilization or IVF to ensure the presence or the absence of particular genes or characteristics. Doctors and scientist work together to conduct these procedures, and work to advance the technology and options for choosing an unborn child’s traits. Some even refer to “designer babies” as “test tube babies.” The reasoning behind these given names is because before the child is even born, the genes and DNA can be altered in a lab in a petri dish. When families choose IVF for “designer babies,” the doctors use biotechnology to choose what type of baby the family wants. Biotechnology is the exploitation …show more content…
Traits such as gender, appearance, intelligence, disease, and even personality qualities. The technology today allows for major advances in IVF, and can allow parents to edit the soon to be child’s DNA qualities. The idea of parents personally choosing qualities for their unborn child in the past was a profound thought, but today it is very well possible. Doctors can choose the simple things such as gender and eye color, but also, can alter genes and DNA to ensure the child won’t have any default mitochondria, or can help another sibling with diseases. An early and well-known case of gender selection took place in 1996, when A family of Fairfax, Virginia chose to use in vitro fertilization to ensure they conceived a girl.(The Embryo Project Encyclopedia 1). Even though this family's case only involved a choice of gender, it raised the issues of selection for other traits (Embryo Project Encyclopedia …show more content…
There have been multiple “designer baby” procedures in order to fix diseases or to create a child that is a specific copy of a deceased sibling. Many have heard of the book My Sister's Keeper, which later became a movie. There have been multiple accounts where families have edited their unborn child's DNA in order to provide copies what their sick child needs. In one case parents of Britain’s first “designer baby” projected an attack on the critics of these procedures. This Whitaker’s had a four year old child, Charlie, who suffered from Anaemia. The couple decided to have a second child who was genetically matched to their previous child while he was still an IVF embryo. However, after the birth of this altered child, the experts admitted their actions to be unethical. After this birth, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, confirmed to ban the screening process in the UK. This decision forced the WHitakers to go to a U.S. clinic (I’d Do It All Again 1). This family has experienced backlash of “designer babies” first hand. The Whitaker’s have been accused of creating a “spare part baby” Also, statements such as the one Suzi Leather of the HREA said “Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should.” (I’d Do It All Again 1). Although the Whitaker’s chose to use IVF to
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.
Human eugenics has become a popular technology in the biology world of reproduction. The idea of conserving the superior traits and deleting the tainted traits has become an exciting movement where even novels like Brave New World has predicted us with the dramatic future of eugenics. Although the idea of deleting tainted traits such as disease seem ideal, the fear of creating “perfect” traits will create dominance from the upper class and will strip individualism. John H. Evan talks about the pros and cons of human eugenics in his article. Inspired by the novel Brave New World, Evans first introduces the idea of class separation between the selected designed babies.
Designer babies have been the debate for a few years now, placed upon a shaky moral platform. With human science pushing the boundaries of human genetics further and further, many are questioning if designer babies have finally crossed the line in science. The problem is that people view designer babies on a moral perspective rather than a medical one. Designer babies should be tolerated because they can help parents prevent their offspring from having certain diseases and disabilities.
In my opinion, our genetic makeup and the environment determine who we will become. The eugenic impulse combined with genetic medicine takes away from the originality and the diversity of the
Designer genetics to create a baby after careful selection is a meme, and “we can say that memes are ‘selfish’, that they ‘do not care’, that they ‘want’ to propagate themselves, and so on, when all we mean is that successful memes are the ones that get copied and spread, while unsuccessful ones do not” (Blackmore 37), and some may consider this genetic modification to be a successful meme which is why parents are so willing to try it. By using technology in this type of way, it may possibly benefit some if it is spread for good causes, such as helping a baby be born without a disease that is known to run in the family so the parents won’t have to see their child go through pain. Many parents put their faith in “23andMe” and their technology because it is their last hope to be able to conceive a child without them having to worry about any debilitating disease or disabilities and since this procedure would be implicated even before the child is developed, there would be no questions of morality. However, some people might take advantage of this new technology and use it for nothing more than creating their fantasy child, as they start to choose non-health related traits such as weight, height, gender and eye color.
The issue of modification through gene manipulation becomes increasingly complex when considering how this technology can be used as a means to unethical and harmful uses. In the article, Babies with Genes From 3 people could be Ethical, Panel Says, Rob Stein exposes various concerns about three gene donors in an embryo, including how a scientist, “Could introduce some new disease into the human gene pool or that scientists could try to do this for other reasons-nonmedical reasons, like create designer babies where parents pick the traits of their children.” Stein goes on to explain how the gene replacement procedure would take place, which continues to usher in a plethora of concerns as whether to allow Crispr technology be tested on a embryo.
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.
It made more than 60000 "flawed genes" of Americans did the sterilization operation. “Once men realized that they could improve future generations by manipulating heredity they would cease searching for environ-mental solutions to political problems-poor laws, factory laws, sanitation laws—and would begin constructing a society in which eugenic values were supreme.” (Ruth S. C., 1972) Although the later governor of these state apologized to these people who were forced to do the sterilization operation, it was unlikely to compensate for their
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.
As technology advances, more things become possible. One of these things is genetically modifying a baby, this is very wrong. Genetic modifying or genetic engineering is altering someone or something’s DNA. Scientists hope to cure diseases with this method but doing this can lead to some harmful effects. This process is very unethical.
but what about the child. How do you think that they would feel about it. Knowing that they aren’t who they actually thought they are. Wow that would be hard to life like that. Studies say that, “There is a debate that says that creating designer babies can lead to a gap in
Gender selection now rakes in revenues of at least $100 million every year. The average cost of a gender selection procedure at high-profile clinics is about $18,000, and an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 procedures are performed every year (Sidhu, 2012). Fertility doctors predict an explosion in sex-selection procedures on the horizon, as couples become accustomed to the idea that they can pay to beget children of the gender they prefer (Sidhu, 2012). A 36-year-old woman named Rose Costa and her husband Vincent, 37, have spent $US100,000 ($AU134,000) on seven attempts at IVF to guarantee a daughter after having already had two sons (Sidhu, 2012). The couple underwent the $US15,000 to $US25,000 process for IVF with sex selection, the speculation has fuelled the debate about whether the screening is ethically sound or a slippery slope toward designer babies (Sidhu, 2012).
Editing of the human genome in the past has been only a sight seen in dystopia works such as Brave New World. Now, genetic enhancement is a prevalent today and people are beginning to realize the issues that can arise from creating these designer babies. Gene editing can be helpful to eradicate life changing disabilities. Yet, the term disability does not correctly label these differently abled people, as the idea of what is considered disabled has changed overtime. To fully understand the consequences and implications of genetic selection and enhancement of human embryos, society must mature and declare lines of what is and is not ethically moral.
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
In many countries, it is illegal to create a designer baby, but in the United States, there is no law against it (Knoepfler, The Ethical Dilemma of Designer Babies, TedTalk). In his TedTalk, “The Ethical Dilemma of Designer Babies,” stem cell and genetics researcher, Paul Knoepfler, states the long-term risks of designer babies, describing it as “a kinder, gentler, positive eugenics.” He also touches on government involvement in this researcher; “I also think it 's not that unlikely that governments might start taking an interest in genetic modification. So for example our imagined GM Jenna child who is healthier, if there 's a generation that looks like they have lower healthcare costs, it 's possible that governments may start trying to compel their citizens to go the GM route.” I agree with many points Knoepfler makes in his TedTalk.