Mariah Bearden
Student number: 22012910
Introduction to Biology, SCI 120
Research project number: 25088100 The fear is that in the future we may be able to use genetic technologies to modify embryos, and choose desirable or cosmetic characteristics. "Designer babies" is a term used by journalists to describe this frightening scenario. It's not a term used by scientists. Advanced reproductive techniques involve using InVitro Fertilization, or IVF for short, to fertilize eggs with sperm in 'test-tubes' outside the mother's body in a laboratory. These techniques allow doctors and parents to reduce the chance that the child will be born with a genetic disorder. The Designer Babies debate, today, is something that the public eye has been shielded from, and for good reasons. The Designer Babies debate is about how we are learning to sidestep nature, and how this could crumble society as we know it today. The Designer Babies ethical considerations come into play because of the effects this procedure will have. Families that can afford these alterations will be few, and this will only increase the disparity between the various social classes. This will ultimately result in a segregation between the superior 'modified' humans, and the pure inferior ones. The diversity of the gene pool and human genetics will be affected, and this may even lead to a big percentage of the human race being wiped out by some major disease. All of this is without considering the effect this procedure will have on the child. If you're tweaking one gene here, then another gene somewhere else must be shifting to balance the event. This could lead to a situation where each child is programmed to do certain tasks, and isn't able to do anything else. The freedom of the child to choose a profession of his/her choice in the future, will be diminished. People need to stop trying to play God by messing with genetics and embryo alterations, and this is exactly what the designer babies debates are all about. The weaknesses of Designer Babies is that it isn't natural. For one, it isn't natural to mess with nature. What if the child didn't come out the way the parent wanted? The parent would end up neglecting the child and discarding it because it is not "perfect." There are reasons why nobody is perfect, and this program is going to mess with that. If you are that superficial to need your baby to look or behave a certain way, then you don't deserve a child. Strengths of Designer Babies are that some people are not capable of having babies because they will have a disease and die when they are born or when they are extremely young. Most of the babies' genes are genetically altered because they will die without the altering. The altering is meant to kill certain heritable diseases. Families with inherited medical conditions like diabetes, hypertension, or diseases like Parkinson's Disease, arthritis, and Alzheimer's disease, etc. may want to go in for designer babies to prevent the next generation from inheriting genes with these diseases. I agree with both views of Designer Babies. The reason why I don't agree with it is because it isn’t natural. I do not think you should be able to design the way your baby should look. Just let nature take its course and when the baby comes you will not be disappointed because it did not come out the way you planned. If you did the Designer Babies, then I think you should only be able to do it if you had serious health conditions in your family. You should not play God by messing with genetics and embryo alterations if you're just trying to make a "perfect baby"; a baby is NOT a designer purse.
References
Debate.org (2013) galegroup.com (2013)