People shop for clothes, furniture, electronics, and more every now and then, but now our technology had advanced to the point where people can shop for the traits of their baby. Gender and phenotypic traits are all up for grabs.
Designer Babies, how?
InVitro Fertilization is the technique that allows an egg to be fertilized in a test tube, outside of the mother’s body. After the egg is removed from the body, the scientist can choose which sperm to fertilize it. Then they screen the embryo for possible genetic diseases. After these two steps, the newly fertilized embryo is implanted back into the mother’s womb. This process is called Pre-implantation genetic Diagnosis (PGD).
Curiosity killed the Embryo
InVitro Fertilization was meant for avoiding diseases and to aid the infertile. Because of the miraculous method, people began to become curious of what else could be done during this process. Actually, one can choose the sperm to fertilize the baby, for the choice of the gender, and the genes. During the second step, which was meant to screen for diseases, scientists are able to screen the other traits as well. Because of this technological outbreak, many healthy and fertile couples are visiting clinics to see if they can choose the gender of their baby. Although gender choice is all the hype now, true designer babies will most definitely come in due time.
The Benefits
The original goal of IVF was to help detect and remove deadly and unwanted diseases and to aid the infertile, which are still the biggest benefits of designer babies. Designer babies can relieve the pain and sadness of parents who lose their children early, due to genetic diseases, and decrease the death rate of children who die near birth. Predetermination of gender is a benefit for some people, especially in China, who are currently under the law of one child per family, unless both parents were only children. Predetermining the gender can decrease the numbers of unwanted children due to their gender. Predetermining the traits is also a benefit, but it is also the topic that made designer babies so debatable.
The Arguments
For people who believe in God, designer babies are like playing with life, which is apparently against the will of God and they are an unnatural occurrence. Only the second point applies to the non-believers. Due to the selection process of embryos, many which are deemed imperfect or unhealthy are discarded, and this is like abortion in the eyes of some people. Also, no matter how good the embryo looks and sounds on screen, it may grow up to be a person whom was not what you intended to be.
Here is a fun little interactive flash where designer babies are explained in a nutshell: http://www.bionetonline.org/english/content/babygame.htm
Resources
http://www.bionetonline.org/english/content/db_cont1.htm
http://www.bionetonline.org/english/content/babygame.htm
http://www.bionetonline.org/english/content/babygame.htm
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