Designer's Babies: The Consequences Of Genetic Engineering

Having a baby can be exciting, scary and rewarding all at the same time. Every mother or father thinks their child is perfect the way they are. Imagine being able to create a baby with the selected skin color, hair, eye color that you could personally pick. This picking of your child’s traits is now becoming more and more common. A baby who’s gender and traits are picked is called a Designer Baby. The term "designer baby" refers to a baby whose genetic traits have been personally picked by the parents. Genetic engineering and in vitro fertilization ensure there are particular genes or characteristics. In this essay, I will be identifying the pros and cons of a designer baby and the history behind a designer baby.

In today’s society trends are set every single day. Some trends are fun and exciting, while others lead to sickness and death. Trends from trying new foods, to eating tide pods, to wearing popular, expensive, designer clothing are exposed to the world all the time. The most unusual, unsafe, and unnecessary trend in today’s society is designer babies. Designer babies are genetically modified children that were designed when they were still embryos in the womb. The first designer baby was born in 2000. This procedure has become increasingly more popular with every passing year. Most people are still skeptical of this unnatural process while others believe designing a real child to look however one chooses seems like a great option. It is said that this mutation could possibly take away premature cancer found in an embryo. It could possibly get rid of genetic deficiencies. In the long run, however, it could cause more negative outcomes than positives. Genetically modified babies seem to have positive benefits, but modifying children could potentially harm the child in the future, is an unnecessary procedure, and is overall socially and ethically wrong.

As many other things designer babies have pros and cons. There are so many pros and cons to go over so let’s begin with the pros. The pros of having a designer baby are that the can reduce the risk of genetic diseases. This means that the baby will have a less chance of getting diseases more than others. Also they can reduce the risk of inherited medical conditions. So whatever the generation of the parents had the baby won’t have the parent choose the baby not to have. Another pro is that it will prevent the next

However even though there are many benefits to designer babies some people do not want designer babies. They believe that manipulation of embryos can hurt the baby and cause imbalances in genders in addition to the belief that designing a baby will cause the parents to love the child less. Steere says, " 'This runs many risks. It 's used in many countries to avoid the birth of female children. '" These are all valid concerns but there is no need to worry. The chances of failure is low and they can also be used to balance out gender dominance. Storrs quotes Dr. Mark Sauer on this when he said, "Despite these concerns, there is currently no evidence that it is unsafe, Sauer said. 'But when you 've got millions of babies (who were screened in this way), you get less and less concerned that you are doing harm, '". People have a right to worry but the evidence shows that designer babies won 't cause health problems or gender

Designer babies can prevent genetic disorders, which can create a healthier generation of kids in the future. Therefore this can eliminate genetic diseases for everyone and make future reproduction easier by not having to use designer babies again.[1]

Technology has had a tremendous effect on how we live our lives raging from how we find information, communicate, and travel the world. Medical technology is well on the way to allowing parents to create designer babies, modifying the DNA of a fetus to achieve desirable traits among them. This ultimately changes their life. It may seem beneficial at the time, but it can cause more harm than good because it goes against nature. Designer babies could lead to new discoveries, but is it right for parents to do?

Imagine you and your partner are sitting in the waiting room at an Obstetrics and Gynecology (OB/GYN) office and the nurse hands you a baby menu. The menu lists traits, medical conditions, and characteristics that you can choose from to have the perfect baby. Some desired options might be hair color, eye color, gender, appearance, intelligence, disease, and personality. As the parent, you have to choose who you want your baby to be and decide everything about your child. Is this what you imagined having a baby would be like? Is it right to choose the genetic makeup of your child? Making designer babies is morally wrong and will have a negative effect on future generations.

The future of the designer baby can either impact the world in a positive way or a negative way. Scientists and doctors will either stop the spread of genetic disease and disability completely, or they can create a whole new and unknown character to the world. No matter what, parents will do whatever they can to stop genetic diseases from spreading to their future young ones, even “designing” them in a test tube, even if it means a doctor can make a small mistake and introduce a whole new and unknown disease to humanity. No matter the outcome of designer babies, they will impact the world, whether it be curing man-kind or exterminating man-kind for all of

If people want to design their apartment, people will usually tend to look in catalogs to choose what they desire. Even when you enter a restaurant, a waiter gives you the menu to choose whatever appeals to you. Whether it is a food or a piece of furniture, you have several choices to choose from. What if this becomes implemented in all aspects of our lives even our babies. Let us imagine, a newly married couple wants to have a baby, therefore they went to the doctor; looked into a catalog and choose a beautiful baby girl with blue eyes, high intelligence, and a great sense of music! Actually what seems to be a good idea for a science-fiction movie turned out to be possible in a few years from now! In fact, people now can choose the gender of their baby. So why not in few years choose their babies' characteristic! People want to live longer and healthier and they want their babies to be perfect. Well, the increasing power and accessibility of genetic technology may one day give parents the option to modify and design their babies. However, the question here is whether it is ethically, safety or socially right? Being able to do something does not mean to do it without putting in mind the consequences and risks that follow.

A designer baby is a baby that is created through in vitro where you get to choose the genetic makeup of your baby. You can choose the physical characteristics, the gender, and even lower disease risks. I understand this concept best by imaging myself picking a baby out of a catalog. The idea of designer babies used to be a far fetched idea until our technology advanced. Once we came to the twenty-first century, what used to be fiction, became a reality (Ly, 2013).

In Huxley 's book, Brave New World, we see what the gap in society could do. Philip Ball describes the book and what it would most likely happen if designer babies would become popular amongst people. “Set in the year 2540, it describes a society whose population is grown in vats in an impersonal central hatchery, graded into five tiers of different intelligence by chemical treatment of the embryos. There are no parents as such – families are considered obscene. Instead, the gestating fetuses and babies are tended by workers in white overalls, “their hands gloved with a pale corpse‑coloured rubber”, under white, dead lights.” (Philip

Countries around the world all have different takes on genetic engineering. According to the article “Designer Babies: An Ethical Horror Waiting to Happen”, “Most countries

A mother lost custody of her eight year old daughter because she injected her daughter with botox to make her look “attractive”(Winter). The parent’s action towards the child was considered to be harmful and not ethical. Even though the constitution does grant us the freedom of upbringing our child how we would like, one cannot do whatever they want. With society creating a perception of a “perfect human being,” altering humans’ logic to be “perfect,” the idea of designer babies was born. Designer babies are babies which doctors and scientists genetically modify, while the babies are still in their mothers’ wombs. The genetic modifications range from physical changes to the removal of diseases. Following the

Designer baby is a non-scientific but popular journalistic term that refers to gene therapy, a technique that uses genes, screening, and modifying embryos to cure hereditary diseases. The term is also used to describe a possible scenario in which scientists choose specific traits or physical characteristics (genetic-makeup) before a baby is born. This process can help to remove many genetic diseases stemmed from defects in mitochondria ("BBC - Horizon - 2005 - Who 's Afraid Of Designer Babies", 2005).

The big question is, should parents be permitted to select certain physical traits for their unborn fetus? The simple answer to this is no, but everyone has their own opinion on this debate. Yes, there are good things that come out of the “designing” your baby but is it really a moral thing to be doing, after all the fetus is a human being. To have your designer baby the doctors who help accomplish this task perform genetic engineering and that is a scary thought. It has its positive sides, such as being able to prevent diseases, but overall genetic engineering to have your designer baby has unknown health risk and unseen consequences, and apart from that it is not following the natural law that God himself made.