Designer Babies

Tall, pretty, athletic, intelligent, blue eyes, blonde hair, these are just a few options that the world’s wealthy class may soon be able to choose for their children. Occasionally referred to as similar to “the eugenics of Hitler’s Third Reich,” the new genetics technology is open to the public (“Designer Babies” n.p) and it tests embryos for a variety of characteristics in its’ DNA (“A Big Step Toward ‘Designer Babies’ n.p.). Using those identified characteristics doctors can alter the DNA of an embryo to a healthier or even a more accepted state. But there have been differences in people’s opinions of the morality of altering embryo’s DNA before they are implanted. A recent advance in genetically altering embryos coined “designer babies” produces controversy about the morality of this process.

After the discovery of genetically altering an embryo before implantation, “designer babies” was coined to describe a child genetically altered “to ensure specific intellectual and cosmetic characteristics.” ("Designer Babies” n.p.). This process combines genetic engineering and In Vitro Fertilization to make sure certain characteristics are absent or present (Thadani n.p.). The topic is rather controversial in the United States, but in China “that’s not the case,” says head of research at a Chinese company, Zhao Bowen (qtd. in Smith 7). This procedure consists of taking a cell from an embryo to be used in screening or preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) (Stock n.p.). If any abnormalities or unwanted characteristics are located, the doctor would inform the parents and at this point it is up to the parents to decide the future of their child. In this stage of altering an embryo, the child could be deprived of life altering diseases o...

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...ered children and the “pure but inferior ones” would grow larger until only modified children remained (Thadani n.p.). But even with these thoughts the wealthy could still push to have these alterations done and the numbers would only continue to climb as the poorer social classes received opportunities to modify their children too. Not only would these parents and children be looked down upon by the defect-only people in society, they would be viewed as ethically wrong for playing god (Stock n.p.). This could lead to a long list of consequences, the worst being a civil war as everyone took their places with their opinions in mind. This shows the complete societal and worldly changes that would result from changes like this, not only to mention the side affects the child would have after being “programmed to do certain tasks” and things of-the-like (Thadani n.p.).