The Pros And Cons Of The Designer Baby

Just imagine being able to walk in a doctor’s office, and hand over a form with all the characteristics and traits you would for your child and viola you generated that so called perfect baby.

What is a Designer Baby? The term came from different journalist describing these babies like new fashion designs. But the actual term for it is a baby genetically enhanced for specially selected traits, characteristics and even sex. The first designer baby was created in the U.S. in 2000. Doctors used screening techniques to test the embryos of Lisa and Jack Nash. They chose the embryos that would be an exact cell match to their daughter Molly. Molly suffers from a genetic disorder called Fanconi Anemia which causes bone marrow deficiency. The embryo

They want to be able to choose what they will look like as well as other characteristics such as intelligence and athletism. Today, this is not yet possible, however, technology and our knowledge of genes continues to advance at a fast rate, raising concerns about our future.

In Leonard Pitts (2002) article “A Risk Free Life” Pitts disagrees about people and society are trying to modify the nature of life. Pitts points outs that genetic enhancement and technology can put the human race like a car dealership when you can pick and choose how you want your children to look like, and not be aware of the other changes that may occur later in life. (Pitts 2002.)

In my opinion, this type of scientific advantage may give people too much freedom. I do believe that if this came to be possible that people would take it for granted. In today’s society we have been coming control freak trying to prevent bad things to happen to our children, but in reality misfortunes still occur even if we try to avoid them and people that agree that designer babies are the new generation are unethical and morally wrong. To produce designer babies you are disregarding a natural process that has worked for millions of

The main argument that Christianity brought up was the misuse of designer babies would result in humans losing their specialness. According to the Christian view point, what makes humans special is that we can limit ourselves, to recognize that something may be perfectly understandable and yet be wrong (McKibben, 1999) Bill McKibben also writes in his article “Design-a-kid” that “The choices we face, in fact, will settle this question on specialness once and for all. If we can’t summon our ability to use self-restraint, or if it proves to be weak, we will leave our specialness behind forever.” The fear is that we escape our limits we will ultimately become nothing (McKibben, 1999). According to some people who are against research towards advanced genetic enhancement might say that it is unnatural, that we, as humans, should not “play God” by altering life. But is there anything wrong with “playing God”? Multiple religions claim that “we are all God’s children”. Whether you are religious or not, surely you would see the flaw when a person who believes in such a statement criticizes a scientific practice by calling it “playing God”. If we truly are “God’s children”, then that would imply that we are destined to become like God. As his children, we would eventually, in a way, “grow up” to be like Him. So wouldn’t manipulating life be an advancement towards fulfilling our purpose as