Topic: “‘Designer babies’ is the term being used by the media to describe the future of modifying or selecting out children’s genes for desirable characteristics (medical and cosmetic). Are things getting out of hand with our research into genetic processes? In this blog investigate social and ethical implications of this research and technologies that have been developed from it.”
WHY WASN’T THIS TECHNOLOGY INVENTED AROUND THE TIME I WAS BORN?
Then my Chinese parents could have a blue-eyed baby…ME!
OH MY, I could’ve been so beautiful.
Humans are just so intelligent.
Maybe a little too smart for their own good…
The process of reproducing and giving birth use to be so sacred and natural, but I can actually choose the way my baby will look now?
This is absolutely extraordinary. Unheard of. Until this past decade.
A designer baby is this incredible new discovery scientists have formed to ensure the presence or absence of particular genes or characteristics in a newborn baby. The baby’s genetic makeup has been artificially altered by genetic engineering to give parents the chance to choose desirable and cosmetic characteristics in their child. Yes, scientists are able to provide a list of possibilities for parents from assembling their babies to resist common diseases and infections (cancer, AIDs, heart attacks and Alzheimer’s disease), to creating a child’s personality in advance to even planning out how the baby will look like! Sounds like there’s more to construct than just a crib now…
Parents have the choice of giving their child the gift of having a fabulous memory or a winning personality or a talent for playing the guitar.
Proven advanced reproductive techniques fertilise a mother’s eggs with the father’s sperm outside the womb in a laboratory. Originally, this incredible feat gives the doctors and parents a chance to reduce their child being born with a genetic disorder. Legally, the doctors are allowed to screen embryos for genetic diseases which are then implanted back into the mother’s womb for the pregnancy to happen. With more innovative ideas, doctors can now choose the type of sperm to fertilise the egg, therefore choosing the sex of the baby. This also gives the doctors a chance to choose the desired genes of the baby, making it a “designer baby.”
“It’s not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’ and ‘how’ this will occur. The reason- Gregory Stock, head of the Program on Medicine, Technology and Society at UCLA’s School of Medicine
people are fascinated by this whole area is that it will challenge our
fundamental thinking about who we are and what it means to be human. We are
talking about remaking human biology.”
This got me thinking, if the baby will grow up to be perfect, will the parents be as important to the baby? Will the parents still get the chance to teach the baby how to play the piano if the baby has the talent of playing the piano implanted in them already? Will the child rely as much on their parents as any other child? What if the child exceeds his/her parents in every way? Have our scientific discoveries created even more problems for society?
Personally, I don’t support the idea of designer babies. I don’t like the idea of fiddling around with the genetics of an embryo peacefully living in the uterus, if you catch my drift. Parents should appreciate their baby resembling them and that the baby is a wonderful gift they have brought into the world together! In the future, I would honestly, find it very hard to think of the baby as mine if he/she had blond hair and blue eyes while my husband and I are both Chinese (for example). It’s like mixing red and blue paint and getting green. It’s weird. I understand that this technology can be helpful in preventing diseases and such, but perhaps they’re there for a reason. With diseases and flaws in us, we are able to strive for the better and to push us to find cures. What will push us when everything’s fine and dandy? The idea of designer babies will drive people into madness. Gender was the first major genetic trait beyond genetic disease to be widely manipulated through Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD). PGD’s original purpose was to aid couples with trouble conceiving babies, but Fertilization Institutes have claimed a staggering 70% of their clients wanting a baby with a predetermined gender have been able to healthily conceive on their own. Couples enter Fertilization Institutes everyday, to confront the risk, the expense ($18 400!) and the discomfort of conceiving their baby in a test tube, all for the ability to choose the sex of their baby. Madness.
Here’s a short story. Both my parents have nice soft skin, but my brother and I both have eczema. Our skin is dry and itchy in particular areas and my parents must buy expensive creams to stop our itching. I asked my parents if they would alter the way my brother and I could’ve turned out when we were embryos, but they said no. Their reason? They didn’t want to take the chance of having other weird complications that might come from altering a child’s genetic makeup. And they also mentioned they liked the way we are. Aw, how cute. Hopefully, the rest of society views designer babies the same way as my parents do.
Designer babies add much unneeded complications to everyday life, bringing more decisions, more stress, more to worry about… All for what? We should be celebrating diversity within our human race, realizing that everyone is different with our own flaws, which make us all beautiful. This brings me to another negative issue dealing with “designer babies.” I hate the idea of taking out the unpredictability and excitement in children. Why would parents document the various stages their child goes through with photos in photo albums if they already know what their child will turn out to look like in the future? Again, this takes away from the child living a normal life from being a designer baby. Why must we create and promote unnatural beauty into our society? As if photo-shopped billboard and magazine advertisements aren’t bad enough for our egos already, bringing designer babies into society would just encourage outer appearances with us.
In the end, who are we to play God?
Although it is the parent’s choice…
I believe in order to have the perfect baby…
Let's keep it simple and do it the old fashioned way!
How beautiful.
My Sources:
- http://www.bionetonline.org/English/content/db_cont1.htm
- http://singularityhub.com/2009/02/25/designer-babies-like-it-or-not-here-they-come/
Blogs I Commented On:
- http://priscillasbioblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/designer-babies-is-term-being-used-by.html?showComment=1263348304617_AIe9_BE8w70UdTW-BTxcPnM818K7sToxyUVIJ592cHRqqXYj5JcvR9aXOsM0jI-EPBWAEbGS90Y_qqPuTmuzzameVlTsq_qtVF1mNqOUkd874uTmKTZ4BdnIgb6BFhwO-xR-yn1Jp1BwyuorEb_zJ_CxG2TlkXQo_zS29L2xjuOHxDATb1nhVg7ouJ44p83nWnMN6z0oLrBFSj5H3J3-CMDM1lsIg7H79jShN6_7HtgFNXmrswxqwuxTOTxxM4b12-ER35L0-9PZ#c5284333623345995956
- https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3588083651638600939&postID=4497238599772901043&page=1&token=1263347916432_AIe9_BF3CTH0xf5zL5AMWn7nyLvx-tJ-pZE3RvDhvkHj2s0MeaguTimalUtrZnA8p0r6MTATVlnqKqtTK2Skt1fGYmFB4BLsLVMaIb6635evA_jBI3uFftRAj2nN0coCT_KYkAK-wrm3RfLR3pPRuYfjLbHydF28ziIFS27V0_Skph80LVahm3MH8d-vY0iVqLSSpK2NyHnkcz_7LXBHUDPb_EJW0GI2H1nJVi923jvjl2lnBnErC01PmI5OLXGodGtwqunwDz-4
