Designer Babies: Unethical or a step in the right direction?

          Designer babies sound exactly how you think. Design your baby. Who would have thought that we would go from designer clothing for consumer use, to designing a baby to fit how we want it to look. You would think that it would be best to leave it in the hands of God and let him decide how the baby will look but now we can do it ourselves. I’m going to look at this from both sides. On one side the benefits of designing your own baby and on the other the criticism behind doing so and how it may affect the world as we know it.

 

           The process behind a designer baby begins with an embryo being created through in-vitro fertilization. Then a single cell is removed from the embryo within 5 days of it being created. The cell is then genetically tested and from there the parents can decide whether or not they want the cell planted into the mother’s womb. The genetic selection of embryos is called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis or PGD. There are a number of reasons why parents may choose to select and embryo in this way. For example to screen for diseases such as Huntingdon’s disease or Down syndrome. Another reason may be to create a healthy baby to treat a sick sibling.

 

            Now the benefits of creating a designer baby are the fact that you can screen for diseases that your family may have had in the past, so that you can make sure your child doesn’t get it when he/she is born. Another benefit of a designer baby is the fact that if you have a child who has cancer and needs a bone marrow transplant but can’t receive it from his/her parents, and then you can create a designer baby that will have the exact blood type to save your child’s life.

 

            But see that brings us to downside of designer babies, if you are going to create a designer baby just to use it to save another one of your children’s lives, then doesn’t that seem unfair for that baby? How are you going to explain to your child that he/she was born for the purpose of saving its sibling? Designer babies is also said to go against Christian beliefs because by designing your own child is kind of like playing God and realistically it would be best to leave it up to him to decide how your child may turn out. In the end I think it’s more of a decision to be made by the parents. But as long as the intentions are for the greater good of the child then I really so no problem with it. Designer babies could be a step in the right direction as far as science is concerned because this could help shape the future of human civilization. The question is will we take this discovery and try and solve the problems in our world or use it for our own benefit such as making money?  

SOURCES:

http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/agar.html

http://www.bionetonline.org/english/content/db_cont1.htm

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/End%20of%20the%20World/Genetics%20Nightmare/designer_babies.htm

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