What is a designer baby? A baby whose genetic makeup has been artificially selected by genetic engineering combined with in vitro fertilisation to ensure the presence or absence of particular genes or characteristics.I was in a certain state of shock when i first found out about this form of cloning. Babies are created by a man and a women,not by any Doctors and most certainly not in a little round dish.To design your baby like you would a room in your house or a baby doll is unnecessary and wrong. Call me crazy, but this all sounds a little to out of this world!
Advanced reproductive techniques involve using InVitro Fertilisation or IVF to fertilise 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 a child will be born with a genetic disorder. At the moment it is only legally possible to carry out two types of advanced reproductive technologies on humans. The first involves choosing the type of sperm that will fertilise an egg: this is used to determine the sex and the genes of the baby. The second technique screens embryos for a genetic disease: only selected embryos are implanted back into the mother's womb. This is called Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD).Advances in genetics have allowed parents and doctors to genetically screen embryos for any genetic disorders. This allows doctors to screen the embryos making it possible to eliminate genes associated with several genetic defects and illnesses. This modern technique has brought out arguments about ethical concerns and cause many people to really analyze the pros and cons of this medical advancement.
Here is a video of Professor Lee Silver explaining the process of Pre-implantation in depth
ADVANTAGES OF PRE-IMPLANTATION
-Genetic screening can reduce the baby's chances of being born with several serious diseases like Down Syndrome, Family hypercholesterolemia, rare blood disorders such as Diamond Black fan Anaemia, etc.
reading this makes me think of the book My Sisters Keeper by: Jodi Picoult. In this book Anna is created to save her sister Kate's life. At the age of 5 Kate was diagnosed with Leukemia and in order to keep her alive, Her parents created Anna. By the process of Pre-implantation, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for her sister.
In the process of doing research on this topic, i was able to find a real life example of a child being created by the same process as well as for the same reasons. Adam Nash was created in 2000 and was the worlds first Designer baby. He was created by pre-implantation to save his dying sisters life. Here are some links for article's on the birth of Adam and further details
-Genetic screening can reduce the baby's chances of being born with several serious diseases like Down Syndrome, Family hypercholesterolemia, rare blood disorders such as Diamond Black fan Anaemia, etc.
reading this makes me think of the book My Sisters Keeper by: Jodi Picoult. In this book Anna is created to save her sister Kate's life. At the age of 5 Kate was diagnosed with Leukemia and in order to keep her alive, Her parents created Anna. By the process of Pre-implantation, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for her sister.
In the process of doing research on this topic, i was able to find a real life example of a child being created by the same process as well as for the same reasons. Adam Nash was created in 2000 and was the worlds first Designer baby. He was created by pre-implantation to save his dying sisters life. Here are some links for article's on the birth of Adam and further details DISADVANTAGES OF PRE-IMPLANTATION
-Other than eliminating genetic diseases, The process of Pre-implantation allows parents to choose the gender, eye, skin and hair color of the baby and Various other physical traits such as intelligence, beauty, height, stopping a propensity towards obesity, freedom from mental illnesses, athletic ability, etc. This is unnecessary and coasts about 18,000 a baby.
- Many think that It is unethical to create designer babies with enhanced physical ability and appearance and will divorce the procreation from the act of sexual congress.
- The Level in Biodiversity will plummet and in the end can result in long term disaster.
-Being able to create the perfect child with high intelligence, great athleticism, and good looks would give parents a certain control that will be taken advantage of. This would take away from the child’s say in their own life as well as the child’s freedom to develop the skills in which they would need to succeed in whatever paths they may choose.
- This would cause huge problems in today’s society. Discrimination would just become a bigger problem as most would be created without any genetic defects. Due to the coast of pre-implantation, not everyone would be able to benefit from its advantages. In the end this will cause a wall to build between those who are genetically perfect and those who are not. this could lead to discrimination of both gender and race.
- Many think that It is unethical to create designer babies with enhanced physical ability and appearance and will divorce the procreation from the act of sexual congress.
- The Level in Biodiversity will plummet and in the end can result in long term disaster.
-Being able to create the perfect child with high intelligence, great athleticism, and good looks would give parents a certain control that will be taken advantage of. This would take away from the child’s say in their own life as well as the child’s freedom to develop the skills in which they would need to succeed in whatever paths they may choose.
- This would cause huge problems in today’s society. Discrimination would just become a bigger problem as most would be created without any genetic defects. Due to the coast of pre-implantation, not everyone would be able to benefit from its advantages. In the end this will cause a wall to build between those who are genetically perfect and those who are not. this could lead to discrimination of both gender and race.
This kind of technology is to much for our society to handle at this point in time. There are many way's in which this can cause our society to break apart and possibly become more chaotic then it already is. Due to the fact that this is a very expensive procedure, the division between those who can afford it and those who cant would be a huge problem. there would be new classes of rich and poor and those who were not genetically engineered would be discriminated against. We as a society have grown together accepting the fact that our world is full of imperfections. When we start taking away those imperfections, we will forget the true meaning of anything other then people's looks and metal, and physical capabilities.
I Personally think this is ridiculous and that science is getting way to out of hand. The point of having a baby is the fact that it is made from the chromosome's of the mother and the father. When I think about this I imagine a couple sitting in an office and choosing their child characteristics from a book! To me, the beauty of having a child is the surprise of finally seeing what they look like when they are born, teaching then how to be good at sports and pressuring them to study and become successful. With the advances in science and pre-implantation, these things would already be inherited and the connection between the parent and child would be lost. This genetic process defeats the purpose of a family and ones personal, physical and mental development. Its time to wake up and realise that there are much bigger problems that should be solved before we start making the creation of the "perfect child" our number one priority.
Sources
http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/agar.html
http://www.bionetonline.org/English/content/db_intro.htm
http://www.bionetonline.org/English/content/db_intro.htm
