Designer Babies - The Wave of the Future?

On Monday, I caught wind of a US clinic that is expecting their first trait-selected child to be born next year! The clinic, LA Fertility Institute, run by Dr. Jeff Steinberg, would allow would-be parents the chance to select traits of their offspring, such as hair color, eye color, and even sex. The parents can also select the color of the complexion of the child. The clinic uses a lab technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD. PGD is already used to screen babies for genetic defects. This process costs about $18,000. Lately, we've been hearing a lot about these IVF fertility 'miracles' so to speak, namely "Octomom". This clinic would allow parents to use their services for medical and cosmetic reasons. The parents may want to select their children based on genetic dispositions, such as select darker-skinned babies because of a family history of melanoma, or they may just want a boy or a girl. However, there are some safety and moral concerns. Many genes have more than one affect and we wouldn't find out until the baby is born to see how they turn out. These inserted genes may disrupt the function of another gene's survival. Even the clinic doesn't guarantee that the baby will come out exactly as the parents hope.
My main concern, though, is of a moral perspective. Is there an ethical divide between preventing disease and enhancing attributes? Where do we draw the line? I can see understand the argument of trying to prevent disease by selecting certain traits, but what about selecting a baby because of personal preference? What if selecting traits of a baby causes us to have a discriminatory society? People could select traits based on color and gender, which can then affect the demographics of our society. What if enhanced people discriminate against unenhanced people or people start selecting out dark-skinned or female babies? In the UK, sex selection is banned and choices are currently only permitted according to the baby's health. However, the US has no such rules, as of yet. I don't know...seems very troubling to me.

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Permalink Reply by Mr. Subspencious on March 7, 2009 at 5:20am: I agree with you. However, Nature always has its own way of regulating eugenics (more like punishing) those who do things the way nature (or god...or both) intended. Yeah as we both know that the only difference between a genetic disease and adaptation is whether its good or bad. What happens is people have these designer babies, the process becomes affordable. People will get rid of all the "bad traits" then everyone will have the same or similar good traits. And them kids gonna wanna have children and wither they choose to have children naturally or not. They run the risk of developing a diseases which are common amongst inbreeds. Wither or not the children are related....if too many of their "good genes" are the same well...that's all she wrote.

Besides if everyone looked the same, sex would be like sooo boring lol.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jami Jackson on March 7, 2009 at 2:16pm: Yea I think so too. We shall see how this baby turns out!!

Mr. Subspencious said:
I agree with you. However, Nature always has its own way of regulating eugenics (more like punishing) those who do things the way nature (or god...or both) intended. Yeah as we both know that the only difference between a genetic disease and adaptation is whether its good or bad. What happens is people have these designer babies, the process becomes affordable. People will get rid of all the "bad traits" then everyone will have the same or similar good traits. And them kids gonna wanna have children and wither they choose to have children naturally or not. They run the risk of developing a diseases which are common amongst inbreeds. Wither or not the children are related....if too many of their "good genes" are the same well...that's all she wrote.

Besides if everyone looked the same, sex would be like sooo boring lol.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Sandra C. Jackson on March 9, 2009 at 12:35pm: I think that the technique should be limited to prevention of genetic defects.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jami Jackson on March 9, 2009 at 8:07pm: I think so too!

Sandra C. Jackson said:
I think that the technique should be limited to prevention of genetic defects.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ian on March 11, 2009 at 8:23am: I don't like the idea at all. It's like saying that you don't accept the way God planned His gift for you. Being that I plan on being a new father around October, no matter if it's a boy or girl, light-skinned or dark-skinned, brown-eyed or hazel-eyed, my child will always receive my unconditional love. I'm just happy at the fact that I was blessed to be able to make a child and I totally refuse to alter my Lord's plans.; ▶ Reply to This