The Question Of Necessity And Ethics Of Designer Babies
Imagine given the choice you could change anything about yourself from your hair and eye colour to body shape. Maybe you could have chosen to be taller or skinnier. Of course we didn’t have these options, for (us) the older generation what we look like is just the luck of the draw from our parent’s genes, however with new developments in genetics study, parents may soon be able to preselect their unborn child’s physical and personality traits like they pick out options on a new sofa. Upgrades, sales and add-ons.
In 2004 the term “designer baby” became a legitimate entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. A designer baby is an embryo which has been genetically modified to produce required traits mostly due to parental preference. However genetically modified embryos are considered unnatural and unethical due to the lack of morality in preselecting your child’s appearance. Many people argue that reproduction and embryos (soon to be babies) are a part of life and shouldn’t be tampered with. A fertility clinic in Los Angeles 2009 suffered severe back lash and public outrage after offering the possibility of preselecting the embryos hair and eye colour.
Whilst the majority of people believe that editing your unborn child’s unique DNA has an effect on your integrity, there are many people who also believe that there are plenty of benefits. At first designer babies will mainly be produced to eliminate a terminal genetic disease running in a family but as technology and knowledge increases many modifications will become standard. Modified humans could alter the genetic make-up of the entire human species. The engineered traits will be passed down to their children and could span over generations slowly changing the whole gene pool of humanity. If gene manipulating can stop certain types of health conditions, there are concerns about what this could lead to in scientific developments. Not only are designer babies pushing the boundaries of ethics they are also pushing the boundaries of class and economy. Like buying a car you can upgrade, start with the minimum $50,000 and work your way towards $100,000. They are only for the rich and can cause social imbalance further driving a wedge between the classes. The preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) procedure used by fertility treatment centers to test embryos before being implanted into the woman’s womb has allowed thousands of parents to avoid passing dangerous and harmful genetic diseases to their offspring.
But being allowed to choose your babies gender surely impacts the way they will be treated in their future. Gender inequality is a major factor in today’s society. If parents were able to choose a male over a female there could potentially be a gender imbalance. As choosing your baby’s gender is currently illegal in Australia many couples are going overseas to get IVF (in-vitro fertilization) and then coming back to Australia to have the baby. Unless the gender affects the health and development of the embryo, the parents are unable to select the gender of their baby. In some cultures, males are preferred over females due to archaic views, again this could lead to a gender imbalance and a significant increase in the gender pay gap.
You may ask how they do this? Well most of the time they use something called CRISPR which stands for (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and CRISPR associated protein 9) this is a recently new, cheap and more efficient way, than other existing gene editing processes. Genome editing involves cutting or causing a break in the DNA structure and deceiving a cells natural repair system, introducing the new genes “it” wants. Like a word document you are able to delete any sentence you like and replace it with a new and better one. What if genome editing becomes just like that? at a touch of a button you are simply able to print the final being and have the perfect genetic makeup your parents wished for you to have.
Safety is the biggest concern when creating a designer baby because there are possible side effects such as mosaicism (when some cells carry the edited gene but others don’t). This could lead to a recessive gene and probable genetic disorder. Another issue with gene editing is consent, an embryo that hasn’t even developed a brain yet is unable to state an answer that could affect the potential outcome of being edited and changing their unique genetic make-up.
In conclusion gene editing is a great relevance to the avoidance and treatment of genetic diseases in humans. Scientists are still working to determine whether gene editing is safe to approach and effective for use in humans. It is being explored on a wide diversity of diseases. It holds a promise to be able to treat and prevent other more harmful diseases like cancer and HIV. But are designer babies unnecessary and unethical and a waste of precious resources, all for the satisfying notion of being the perfect child. What happened to the saying your DNA is unique and no-one is alike?
