designer babies opinion essay

The Aspen Institute

©2024 The Aspen Institute. All Rights Reserved

• 0 Comments Add Your Comment

Designer Babies: Where Does Society Draw the Line?

November 10, 2014  • Alison Berkley Margo, Guest Blogger

Designer babies  — a term to describe the use of genetic selection to determine desired qualities of a child, such as eye color or even enhanced intelligence — are becoming closer to reality. With the potential to change everything from a newborn’s eye color to its health conditions (or lack thereof), where do we as a society draw the line? Should these technologies be aimed exclusively at pathogenic conditions, and if so, what are the risks and implications for future generations? 

Community members in Aspen, CO, recently took on this issue during the launch of a new four-week Aspen Community Program Series called Our Society Reimagined: Exploring New Ideas. The seminar gives participants a chance to engage in non-partisan discussion and debate regarding the future implications of technology and innovation.

The first debate focused specifically on two current genetic modification techniques: mitochondrial DNA transfer (mtDNA) and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). Patients undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) can use PGD in order to select the healthiest embryos for implantation, therefore reducing the risk of birth defects while increasing the chances of a successful live birth pregnancy. MtDNA transfer has been recommended for people with mitochondrial diseases to be able to have their own children by combining their own nuclear DNA with mitochondrial DNA provided by a healthy donor.

“Technology can be a double-edge sword,” said Peter Frey, a retired Northwestern University professor. “Over the past two decades, the pace of technology has accelerated. New technology emerges on a daily basis, and keeping up is difficult. Our challenge is to use it to improve our lives and to minimize its negative consequences.”

Daniel Wetzel, an associate at the Rocky Mountain Institute and former formulation scientist, asked the group to consider the issue in a biologic, rather than moral or humanist context.

“We as humans have evolved the ability to change things on a radically different time scale than nature is used to,” he said. Wetzel cited the implications of past technological adaptations such as anthropogenic climate change due to the use of fossil fuels and mass extinction caused by industrial agriculture.

“We need to recognize that the societal decisions we make do not simply have moral dimensions but real biological implications as well. We design solutions to benefit humanity in the short term without considering our environment in the long term.”

Wetzel supports “smart regulation” of genetic manipulation technology use and said it is “reckless not to understand the potential of this technology,” should we be faced with a threat that could utilize it in the future.

Kat Daley, on-site host and experience manager for the luxury travel agency Cuvee, conceded to the biological context of the issue but insists it’s also an ethical, moral, religious, and financial choice as well. “Who is financing this?” Daley asked. “And what if interest runs out, and we are then left with manipulated DNA with no one to determine the long term ramifications? What about other diseases that are more prevalent killers, like cancer, heart disease, AIDS, and obesity, that could also use the funding?” 

Daley raised the issue of medical tourism as posing a challenge against regulation in a global society. She fears where this technology is headed, citing the possibility of eugenics and a culture defined by genetic engineering.

“Are we going down a path of creating our own Krypton?” she asked. “A place where babies are bred for a specific purpose?” Rather than trying to keep up with countries like China, which has identified the genes necessary to increase intelligence, Daley asked, “Why can’t we be a leader in ethics and be the ones to point out the bigger picture?”

Participants shared other perspectives and concerns, including social stratification due to the high cost of genetic technologies; undermining the human experience; medical tourism in a global environment; and more.

For better or for worse, the majority of those in attendance agreed that it is too late to change course now. But several pointed to one human trait that science cannot manipulate. “We can’t define the mystery of our personalities or explain how it is connected to our genetic makeup,” said participant Denali Barron. “You can manipulate a chromosome, but there is so much more depth and resonance to our humanity than we’re addressing.”

“You can’t eliminate the emotional side,” said participant Marcia Flaks. “To quote E.O. Wilson, ‘the instability of emotion is the essence of human character.’ Human nature may be the great regulator. It has a way of stepping in and making things better.”

Our Society Reimagined: Exploring New Ideas is part of the new four-week Aspen Community Program Series. It is designed as a forum for community members to gain insight into specific issues facing our society today, as well as research viable solutions to these issues. Visit our event calendar to learn more.

Related Posts

March 29, 2024 Rev. Dr. Audrey Price & 1 more

October 16, 2023 Religion & Society Program & 1 more

The best of the Institute, right in your inbox.

Sign up for our email newsletter

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Designer babies: an ethical horror waiting to happen?

Nearly 40 years since the first ‘test-tube baby’, how close are we to editing out all of our genetic imperfections – and should we even try to do so?

C omfortably seated in the fertility clinic with Vivaldi playing softly in the background, you and your partner are brought coffee and a folder. Inside the folder is an embryo menu. Each embryo has a description, something like this:

Embryo 78 – male No serious early onset diseases, but a carrier for phenylketonuria (a metabolic malfunction that can cause behavioural and mental disorders. Carriers just have one copy of the gene, so don’t get the condition themselves). Higher than average risk of type 2 diabetes and colon cancer. Lower than average risk of asthma and autism. Dark eyes, light brown hair, male pattern baldness. 40% chance of coming in the top half in SAT tests.

There are 200 of these embryos to choose from, all made by in vitro fertilisation (IVF) from you and your partner’s eggs and sperm. So, over to you. Which will you choose?

If there’s any kind of future for “designer babies”, it might look something like this. It’s a long way from the image conjured up when artificial conception, and perhaps even artificial gestation, were first mooted as a serious scientific possibility. Inspired by predictions about the future of reproductive technology by the biologists JBS Haldane and Julian Huxley in the 1920s, Huxley’s brother Aldous wrote a satirical novel about it.

That book was, of course, Brave New World , published in 1932. Set in the year 2540, it describes a society whose population is grown in vats in an impersonal central hatchery, graded into five tiers of different intelligence by chemical treatment of the embryos. There are no parents as such – families are considered obscene. Instead, the gestating fetuses and babies are tended by workers in white overalls, “their hands gloved with a pale corpse‑coloured rubber”, under white, dead lights.

Brave New World has become the inevitable reference point for all media discussion of new advances in reproductive technology. Whether it’s Newsweek reporting in 1978 on the birth of Louise Brown , the first “test-tube baby” (the inaccurate phrase speaks volumes) as a “cry round the brave new world”, or the New York Times announcing “ The brave new world of three-parent IVF ” in 2014, the message is that we are heading towards Huxley’s hatchery with its racks of tailor-made babies in their “numbered test tubes”.

The spectre of a harsh, impersonal and authoritarian dystopia always looms in these discussions of reproductive control and selection. Novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, whose 2005 novel, Never Let Me Go , described children produced and reared as organ donors, last month warned that thanks to advances in gene editing, “we’re coming close to the point where we can, objectively in some sense, create people who are superior to others ”.

But the prospect of genetic portraits of IVF embryos paints a rather different picture. If it happens at all, the aim will be not to engineer societies but to attract consumers. Should we allow that? Even if we do, would a list of dozens or even hundreds of embryos with diverse yet sketchy genetic endowments be of any use to anyone?

The shadow of Frankenstein ’s monster haunted the fraught discussion of IVF in the 1970s and 80s, and the misleading term “three-parent baby” to refer to embryos made by the technique of mitochondrial transfer – moving healthy versions of the energy-generating cell compartments called mitochondria from a donor cell to an egg with faulty, potentially fatal versions – insinuates that there must be something “unnatural” about the procedure.

Every new advance puts a fresh spark of life into Huxley’s monstrous vision. Ishiguro’s dire forecast was spurred by the gene-editing method called Crispr-Cas9 , developed in 2012, which uses natural enzymes to target and snip genes with pinpoint accuracy. Thanks to Crispr-Cas9, it seems likely that gene therapies – eliminating mutant genes that cause some severe, mostly very rare diseases – might finally bear fruit, if they can be shown to be safe for human use. Clinical trials are now under way.

But modified babies? Crispr-Cas9 has already been used to genetically modify (nonviable) human embryos in China, to see if it is possible in principle – the results were mixed. And Kathy Niakan of the Francis Crick Institute in the UK has been granted a licence by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to use Crispr-Cas9 on embryos a few days old to find out more about problems in these early stages of development that can lead to miscarriage and other reproductive problems.

Most countries have not yet legislated on genetic modification in human reproduction, but of those that have, all have banned it. The idea of using Crispr-Cas9 for human reproduction is largely rejected in principle by the medical research community. A team of scientists warned in Nature less than two years ago that genetic manipulation of the germ line (sperm and egg cells) by methods like Crispr-Cas9, even if focused initially on improving health, “ could start us down a path towards non-therapeutic genetic enhancement ”.

Besides, there seems to be little need for gene editing in reproduction. It would be a difficult, expensive and uncertain way to achieve what can mostly be achieved already in other ways, particularly by just selecting an embryo that has or lacks the gene in question. “Almost everything you can accomplish by gene editing, you can accomplish by embryo selection,” says bioethicist Henry Greely of Stanford University in California.

Because of unknown health risks and widespread public distrust of gene editing, bioethicist Ronald Green of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire says he does not foresee widespread use of Crispr-Cas9 in the next two decades, even for the prevention of genetic disease, let alone for designer babies. However, Green does see gene editing appearing on the menu eventually, and perhaps not just for medical therapies. “It is unavoidably in our future,” he says, “and I believe that it will become one of the central foci of our social debates later in this century and in the century beyond.” He warns that this might be accompanied by “serious errors and health problems as unknown genetic side effects in ‘edited’ children and populations begin to manifest themselves”.

For now, though, if there’s going to be anything even vaguely resembling the popular designer-baby fantasy, Greely says it will come from embryo selection, not genetic manipulation. Embryos produced by IVF will be genetically screened – parts or all of their DNA will be read to deduce which gene variants they carry – and the prospective parents will be able to choose which embryos to implant in the hope of achieving a pregnancy. Greely foresees that new methods of harvesting or producing human eggs, along with advances in preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) of IVF embryos, will make selection much more viable and appealing, and thus more common, in 20 years’ time.

PGD is already used by couples who know that they carry genes for specific inherited diseases so that they can identify embryos that do not have those genes. The testing, generally on three- to five-day-old embryos, is conducted in around 5% of IVF cycles in the US. In the UK it is performed under licence from the HFEA, which permits screening for around 250 diseases including thalassemia, early-onset Alzheimer’s and cystic fibrosis.

As a way of “designing” your baby, PGD is currently unattractive. “Egg harvesting is unpleasant and risky and doesn’t give you that many eggs,” says Greely, and the success rate for implanted embryos is still typically about one in three. But that will change, he says, thanks to developments that will make human eggs much more abundant and conveniently available, coupled to the possibility of screening their genomes quickly and cheaply.

Advances in methods for reading the genetic code recorded in our chromosomes are going to make it a routine possibility for every one of us – certainly, every newborn child – to have our genes sequenced. “In the next 10 years or so, the chances are that many people in rich countries will have large chunks of their genetic information in their electronic medical records,” says Greely.

But using genetic data to predict what kind of person an embryo would become is far more complicated than is often implied. Seeking to justify unquestionably important research on the genetic basis of human health, researchers haven’t done much to dispel simplistic ideas about how genes make us. Talk of “IQ genes”, “gay genes” and “musical genes” has led to a widespread perception that there is a straightforward one-to-one relationship between our genes and our traits. In general, it’s anything but.

There are thousands of mostly rare and nasty genetic diseases that can be pinpointed to a specific gene mutation. Most more common diseases or medical predispositions – for example, diabetes, heart disease or certain types of cancer – are linked to several or even many genes, can’t be predicted with any certainty, and depend also on environmental factors such as diet.

When it comes to more complex things like personality and intelligence, we know very little. Even if they are strongly inheritable – it’s estimated that up to 80% of intelligence, as measured by IQ, is inherited – we don’t know much at all about which genes are involved, and not for want of looking.

At best, Greely says, PGD might tell a prospective parent things like “there’s a 60% chance of this child getting in the top half at school, or a 13% chance of being in the top 10%”. That’s not much use.

We might do better for “cosmetic” traits such as hair or eye colour. Even these “turn out to be more complicated than a lot of people thought,” Greely says, but as the number of people whose genomes have been sequenced increases, the predictive ability will improve substantially.

Ewan Birney, director of the European Bioinformatics Institute near Cambridge, points out that, even if other countries don’t choose to constrain and regulate PGD in the way the HFEA does in the UK, it will be very far from a crystal ball.

Nearly anything you can measure for humans, he says, can be studied through genetics, and analysing the statistics for huge numbers of people often reveals some genetic component. But that information “is not very predictive on an individual basis,” says Birney. “I’ve had my genome sequenced on the cheap, and it doesn’t tell me very much. We’ve got to get away from the idea that your DNA is your destiny.”

If the genetic basis of attributes like intelligence and musicality is too thinly spread and unclear to make selection practical, then tweaking by genetic manipulation certainly seems off the menu too. “I don’t think we are going to see superman or a split in the species any time soon,” says Greely, “because we just don’t know enough and are unlikely to for a long time – or maybe for ever.”

If this is all “designer babies” could mean even in principle – freedom from some specific but rare diseases, knowledge of rather trivial aspects of appearance, but only vague, probabilistic information about more general traits like health, attractiveness and intelligence – will people go for it in large enough numbers to sustain an industry?

Greely suspects, even if it is used at first only to avoid serious genetic diseases, we need to start thinking hard about the options we might be faced with. “Choices will be made,” he says, “and if informed people do not participate in making those choices, ignorant people will make them.”

Green thinks that technological advances could make “design” increasingly versatile. In the next 40-50 years, he says, “we’ll start seeing the use of gene editing and reproductive technologies for enhancement: blond hair and blue eyes, improved athletic abilities, enhanced reading skills or numeracy, and so on.”

He’s less optimistic about the consequences, saying that we will then see social tensions “as the well-to-do exploit technologies that make them even better off”, increasing the relatively worsened health status of the world’s poor. As Greely points out, a perfectly feasible 10-20% improvement in health via PGD, added to the comparable advantage that wealth already brings, could lead to a widening of the health gap between rich and poor, both within a society and between nations.

Others doubt that there will be any great demand for embryo selection, especially if genetic forecasts remain sketchy about the most desirable traits. “Where there is a serious problem, such as a deadly condition, or an existing obstacle, such as infertility, I would not be surprised to see people take advantage of technologies such as embryo selection,” says law professor and bioethicist R Alta Charo of the University of Wisconsin. “But we already have evidence that people do not flock to technologies when they can conceive without assistance.”

The poor take-up of sperm banks offering “superior” sperm, she says, already shows that. For most women, “the emotional significance of reproduction outweighs any notion of ‘optimisation’”. Charo feels that “our ability to love one another with all our imperfections and foibles outweighs any notion of ‘improving’ our children through genetics”.

All the same, societies are going to face tough choices about how to regulate an industry that offers PGD with an ever-widening scope. “Technologies are very amoral,” says Birney. “Societies have to decide how to use them” – and different societies will make different choices.

One of the easiest things to screen for is sex. Gender-specific abortion is formally forbidden in most countries, although it still happens in places such as China and India where there has been a strong cultural preference for boys. But prohibiting selection by gender is another matter. How could it even be implemented and policed? By creating some kind of quota system?

And what would selection against genetic disabilities do to those people who have them? “They have a lot to be worried about here,” says Greely. “In terms of whether society thinks I should have been born, but also in terms of how much medical research there is into diseases, how well understood it is for practitioners and how much social support there is.”

Once selection beyond avoidance of genetic disease becomes an option – and it does seem likely – the ethical and legal aspects are a minefield. When is it proper for governments to coerce people into, or prohibit them from, particular choices, such as not selecting for a disability? How can one balance individual freedoms and social consequences?

“The most important consideration for me,” says Charo, “is to be clear about the distinct roles of personal morality, by which individuals decide whether to seek out technological assistance, versus the role of government, which can prohibit, regulate or promote technology.”

She adds: “Too often we discuss these technologies as if personal morality or particular religious views are a sufficient basis for governmental action. But one must ground government action in a stronger set of concerns about promoting the wellbeing of all individuals while permitting the widest range of personal liberty of conscience and choice.”

“For better or worse, human beings will not forgo the opportunity to take their evolution into their own hands,” says Green. “Will that make our lives happier and better? I’m far from sure.”

Easy pickings: the future of designer babies

The simplest and surest way to “design” a baby is not to construct its genome by pick’n’mix gene editing but to produce a huge number of embryos and read their genomes to find the one that most closely matches your desires.

Two technological advances are needed for this to happen, says bioethicist Henry Greely of Stanford University in California. The production of embryos for IVF must become easier, more abundant and less unpleasant. And gene sequencing must be fast and cheap enough to reveal the traits an embryo will have. Put them together and you have “Easy PGD” (preimplantation genetic diagnosis): a cheap and painless way of generating large numbers of human embryos and then screening their entire genomes for desired characteristics.

“To get much broader use of PGD, you need a better way to get eggs,” Greely says. “The more eggs you can get, the more attractive PGD becomes.” One possibility is a one-off medical intervention that extracts a slice of a woman’s ovary and freezes it for future ripening and harvesting of eggs. It sounds drastic, but would not be much worse than current egg-extraction and embryo-implantation methods. And it could give access to thousands of eggs for future use.

An even more dramatic approach would be to grow eggs from stem cells – the cells from which all other tissue types can be derived. Some stem cells are present in umbilical blood, which could be harvested at a person’s birth and frozen for later use to grow organs – or eggs.

Even mature cells that have advanced beyond the stem-cell stage and become specific tissue types can be returned to a stem-cell-like state by treating them with biological molecules called growth factors. Last October, a team in Japan reported that they had made mouse eggs this way from skin cells, and fertilised them to create apparently healthy and fertile mouse pups.

Thanks to technological advances, the cost of human whole-genome sequencing has plummeted. In 2009 it cost around $50,000; today it is most like $1,500, which is why several private companies can now offer this service. In a few decades it could cost just a few dollars per genome. Then it becomes feasible to think of PGD for hundreds of embryos at a time.

“The science for safe and effective Easy PGD is likely to exist some time in the next 20 to 40 years,” says Greely. He thinks it will then become common for children to be conceived through IVF using selected genomes. He forecasts that this will lead to “the coming obsolescence of sex” for procreation.

• Reproduction
• The Observer
• Fertility problems

Comments (…)

Most viewed.

Ethics of Designer Babies

A designer baby is a baby genetically engineered in vitro for specially selected traits, which can vary from lowered disease-risk to gender selection. Before the advent of genetic engineering and in vitro fertilization (IVF), designer babies were primarily a science fiction concept. However, the rapid advancement of technology before and after the turn of the twenty-first century makes designer babies an increasingly real possibility. As a result, designer babies have become an important topic in bioethical debates, and in 2004 the term “designer baby” even became an official entry in the Oxford English Dictionary . Designer babies represent an area within embryology that has not yet become a practical reality, but nonetheless draws out ethical concerns about whether or not it will become necessary to implement limitations regarding designer babies in the future.

The prospect of engineering a child with specific traits is not far-fetched. IVF has become an increasingly common procedure to help couples with infertility problems conceive children, and the practice of IVF confers the ability to pre-select embryos before implantation. For example, preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) allows viable embryos to be screened for various genetic traits, such as sex-linked diseases, before implanting them in the mother. Through PGD, physicians can select embryos that are not predisposed to certain genetic conditions. For this reason, PGD is commonly used in medicine when parents carry genes that place their children at risk for serious diseases such as cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anemia. Present technological capabilities point to PGD as the likely method for selecting traits, since scientists have not established a reliable means of in vivo embryonic gene selection.

An early and well-known case of gender selection took place in 1996 when Monique and Scott Collins saw doctors at the Genetics & IVF Institute in Fairfax, Virginia, for in vitro fertilization. The Collins’ intended to conceive a girl, as their first two children were boys and the couple wanted a daughter in the family. This was one of the first highly publicized instances of PGD in which the selection of the embryo was not performed to address a specific medical condition, but to fulfill the parents’ desire to create a more balanced family. The Collins’ decision to have a “designer baby” by choosing the sex of their child entered the public vernacular when they were featured in Time Magazine’s 1999 article "Designer Babies". Though the Collins’ case only involved choice of gender, it raised the issues of selection for other traits such as eye color, hair color, athleticism, or height that are not generally related to the health of the child.

Prior to the Collins’ decision to choose the sex of their child, The Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs released a statement in 1994 in support of using genetic selection as a means to prevent, cure or specific diseases, but that selection based on benign characteristics was not ethical. Some ethical concerns held by opponents of designer babies are related to the social implications of creating children with preferred traits. The social argument against designer babies is that if this technology becomes a realistic and accessible medical practice, then it would create a division between those that can afford the service and those that cannot. Therefore, the wealthy would be able to afford the selection of desirable traits in their offspring, while those of lower socioeconomic standing would not be able to access the same options. As a result, economic divisions may grow into genetic divisions, with social distinctions delineating enhanced individuals from unenhanced individuals. For example, the science-fiction film Gattaca explores this issue by depicting a world in which only genetically-modified individuals can engage in the upper echelon of society.

Other bioethicists have argued that parents have a right to prenatal autonomy, which grants them the right to decide the fate of their children. George Annas, chair of the Department of Health Law, Bioethics, and Human Rights at Harvard University has offered support for the idea of PGD, and the designer babies that result, as a consumer product that should be open to the forces of market regulation. Additionally, other arguments in favor of designer baby technologies suggest that parents already possess a high degree of control over the outcome of their children’s lives in the form of environmental choices, and that this should absolve some of the ethical concerns facing genetic selection. For example, parents keen on establishing musical appreciation in their children may sign them up for music classes or take them to concerts on a regular basis. These choices affect the way a child matures, much like the decision to select certain genes predisposes a child to develop in ways that the parents have predetermined are desirable.

The increased ability to control and manipulate embryos presents many possibilities for improving the health of children through prenatal diagnosis, but these possibilities are coupled with potential social repercussions that could have negative consequences in the future. Ultimately, designer babies represent great potential in the field of medicine and scientific research, but there remain many ethical questions that need to be addressed.

• Agar, Nicholas. American Institute of Biological Sciences. “Designer Babies: Ethical Considerations,” http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/agar.html (Accessed October 16, 2010).
• Annas, George. “Noninvasive Prenatal Diagnostic Technology: Medical, Market, or Regulatory Model?” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 721 (1994): 262–8.
• Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, American Medical Association. “Ethical Issues Related to Prenatal Genetic Testing,” Archives of Family Medicine 3 (1994): 633–42.
• Kitcher, Philip. “Creating Perfect People.” In Companion to Genetics , eds. Justine Burley and John Harris, 229–42. Boston: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.
• Lemonick, Michael. “Designer Babies.” 153, Time Magazine, January 11, 1999.
• Morales, Tatiana. CBS News. “Choosing Your Baby’s Gender.” http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/11/06/earlyshow/contributors/emilysenay/main528404.shtml (Accessed October 17, 2010).
• Verlinsky, Yuri. “Designing Babies: What the Future Holds,” Reproductive BioMedicine Online 10 (2005): 24–6.

How to cite

Articles rights and graphics.

Copyright Arizona Board of Regents Licensed as Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)  

Last modified

Share this page.

• Campus News
• Campus Events
• Devotionals and Forums
• Readers’ Forum
• Education Week
• Breaking News
• Police Beat
• Video of the Day
• Current Issue
• August 2023
• February 2023
• January 2023
• The Daily Universe Magazine, December 2022
• The Daily Universe, November 2022
• The Daily Universe Magazine, October 2022
• The Daily Universe Magazine, September 2022 (Black 14)
• The Daily Universe Magazine, March 2022
• The Daily Universe Magazine, February 2022
• The Daily Universe Magazine, January 2022
• December 2021
• The Daily Universe Magazine, November 2021
• The Daily Universe, October 2021
• The Daily Universe Magazine, September 2021
• Hope for Lahaina: Witnesses of the Maui Wildfires
• Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial
• The Black 14: Healing Hearts and Feeding Souls
• Camino de Santiago
• A Poor Wayfaring Man
• Palmyra: 200 years after Moroni’s visits
• The Next Normal
• Called to Serve In A Pandemic
• The World Meets Our Campus
• Defining Moments of BYU Sports
• If Any of You Lack Wisdom

Designer babies: Rogue science or future option?

By Dolli Player and Alicia Matsuura

Leer en español: Bebés a la medida: ¿Una ciencia inmoral o una solución a futuro?

In the early 2000s, genome editing seemed like the answer to parents who carried latent genes that could result in birth defects, future illnesses or poor quality of life for their potential children. But the technology was still unrefined and expensive. It seemed like it was too far off in the future — a science-fiction-inspired solution to real-world problems.

It wasn’t until the discovery of the CRISPR-Cas9 combination in 2013 that the conversation among scientists changed from “it’s impossible” to “should it be possible?”

Before being able to grasp the meaning of the term “designer babies,” it’s important to understand the building blocks of the system that makes it possible.

The scientific process of creating these possible “designer babies” is called genome editing. A genome is present in every living organism, and it encodes all the messages and instructions of that organism’s DNA sequence. This sequence makes up the characteristics and functions of that organism. CRISPR-cas9 and genome editing change those sequences, which in turn changes the message and the output of those cells.

In scientific terms, CRISPR, which stands for clusters of regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, is a region of DNA that contains repeated sequences of nucleotide repeaters and spacers. Those spacers are a memory bank, holding information from previous attacking DNA and adapting to recognize them in the future. By altering or adding to this “memory bank,” scientists can alter the DNA’s response to any new information it comes across.

Cas-9 is an enzyme that cuts foreign DNA. Combined with CRISPR, this enzyme can alter DNA by cutting a break in a genome’s sequence and forcing it to adapt and adjust with whatever new sequence it is presented with, kind of like “copy and paste” on a cellular level.

Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society (CGS), author, and human rights activist, is one of the leading voices in the ethical debate around “designer babies” and genome editing.

CGS was founded in 2001 in response to a wave of discussions on human germline editing, or deliberately changing the genes passed on to children and future generations.

“While we support genetic engineering tools to treat diseases for people who are sick, we should not use those tools to try and modify the gene traits of future human beings and future generations,” Darnovsky said.

Darnovsky argues against gene trait modification for several reasons. One is the potential for harm due to technical limitations and safety concerns. Another concern is the social and ethical issues of these procedures being used only by those who can afford them.

“We live in such a competitive society with staggering levels of inequality and disparity already. I think it makes people anxious about their children’s place in society,” Darnovsky. “It makes you think. If they can get a leg up for their kid by dropping an extra $100,000 at a fertility clinic, there are people who would jump at that chance.”

Darnovsky is concerned about the future possibility of fertility clinics adopting aggressive marketing techniques to promote human germline genome editing to parents.

“It would be available to people who could afford these genetic upgrades for their own children,” Darnovsky said. “They might think, ‘If I can afford it, why shouldn’t I make my kid taller? Have lighter skin or whatever socially desired characteristic there is?”

The perceptions of biological differences and superiority or inferiority are very powerful in societies, according to Darnovsky. 

“To me, that’s a key part of the historical underpinnings of racism. We have these stereotypes that are evidence free but have been very powerful and destructive,” Darnovsky said.

According to Dana Carroll, a distinguished biochemistry professor at the University of Utah, the discussions surrounding human germline editing have shifted in the past 15 months alone. 

Chinese researcher He Jiankui stunned the world in November 2018 when he announced at a Hong Kong conference that he produced genetically edited babies through modifications introduced by CRISPR.

“A lot of the discussion is now focused on, was it ethical to do that? What would the standards be if you were to go back and modify embryos so children were born with different characteristics?” Carroll said.

Carroll is part of the International Commission on the Clinical Use of Human Germline Genome Editing, which explores the possible clinical uses of human germline genome editing. The commission also published a report on the standards that should be adhered to when undergoing this process. Although the technology is not advanced enough yet, Carroll is concerned about individuals and small groups of people misusing the technology.

“It should be something that countries and societies agree would be OK to do,” Carroll said. “There needs to be a lot of extended discussions and thinking about this in various places.”

The debate on human germline editing is still ongoing; however, great strides are being made in gene editing for curing diseases and alleviating medical conditions. The California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is a stem cell agency that was created shortly after California voters approved California Proposition 71, which supports stem cell research in the state. 

Jonathon Thomas serves as the Chairman of the Board for CIRM. He said the ethical considerations on genome editing have been paramount since Proposition 71. CIRM has been strict in adhering to national guidelines and ethical practices affecting the field of human genome editing.

“We’re funding studies that attempt to modify genes to cure disease,” Thomas said. “Our regulations prohibit funding for research where genetically modified embryos are implanted into a uterus for reproductive purposes.”

CIRM has funded a research project that has saved the lives of children with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), a disease that causes babies to be born without a working immune system. Children with SCID are quarantined from birth and normally don’t live for more than two years, Thomas said.

The project involved UCLA scientists who developed a technique that takes a functioning blood-forming stem cell through gene editing then places it back in the child’s bone marrow. This creates a bloodstream with normal, functioning immune elements and gives patients the ability to fight off the disease. 

The project is one example of how human genome editing can change individuals’ lives for the better.

“These kids who were destined to a terrible, short life, now have immune systems that work,” Thomas said. “They’re back in pre-school or elementary school, and if they get sick, it causes no problems. This is a real example of the use of gene cell therapy to drive a transformative result.”

RELATED ARTICLES MORE FROM AUTHOR

Big performances, big announcements: unforum 2024, how byu basketball landed one of the nba’s best assistants, a round-up of the best blossoms on byu campus.

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Retro Report

Scientists Can Design ‘Better’ Babies. Should They?

Where the debate over ‘designer babies’ began, genetic technology is advancing, and critics are warning of a slippery slope. we spoke with the scientists working at the forefront of the research, families who have benefited from the advancements and the first-ever “test-tube” baby — now nearing age 40 — to understand the debate..

“A revolutionary technology that can edit genetic mistakes.” News that researchers modified the DNA of a human embryo has created shockwaves, reigniting a familiar refrain. “Designer babies.” “Designer babies.” “Designing babies is not allowed in America now, but it’s coming.” It’s not the first time a scientific advance involving embryos has ignited alarm. “A British medical team said today it hopes to create the world’s first test-tube baby by the end of this year.” In the 1970s, the idea of in vitro fertilization was still a dream, but fears of where it might lead were already taking hold. “This is one step toward further modes of manufacturing our children.” “People were just generally scared. They didn’t know what was going to happen. I think it was tied up with the old novel, ‘Brave New World,’ in which the babies there were gestated in what he called bottles.” “Mark Bernard G., inspected and approved.” “To create a baby in the laboratory in a petri dish was considered not just abnormal, it was considered immoral.” “Several other doctors say they are against the idea. They claim that it opens the way for mass production of babies and as they put it, ‘a nightmare of biological engineering.’” “Concerns ranged from: there’s a slippery slope here, once we start making life outside the womb, once we start making life in dishes, won’t we wind up saying that’s the best way to do it for everybody? That we are going to wind up eliminating natural reproduction.” “People said all sorts of nasty things about it. They thought they were creating designer babies. They would create monsters.” “There was fear that someday the techniques could be used to develop something other than a normal human being.” “One MP warned of the dangers of scientific breeding becoming a reality, of a revival of Adolf Hitler’s concept of a master race.” The two scientists at the forefront of the research, Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards, conducted their work in a secluded laboratory far away from the media spotlight. “They were doing things like disguising themselves and making sure that their cars were parked in a different location when they went to visit or do any of the work. It was really cloak and dagger.” After more than a decade of research, their controversial experiment became one of the biggest medical stories of the century. “The world’s first test-tube baby was born here in Britain last night.” “A pink, healthy baby girl who began life in a test tube.” “At birth, it came out crying its head off and in very good state, breathing very well.” “Louise came out, she wasn’t a Frankenbaby, she was healthy, she looked normal. The fact that the first human I.V.F. that went to term, resulted in a healthy baby, dramatically changed perspectives on I.V.F.” “We forget now because I.V.F. is commonplace, but really Louise Brown heralded hope for millions of people throughout the world.” That hope, and the media’s fascination, generated hundreds of headlines around the globe. “When I look back on the cuttings — newspaper cuttings, and films, we couldn’t come back home to Bristol for 11 to 12 days, and when we did, there were 100 journalists–plus outside our little house from all over the world. It was just madness.” “The birth of Louise Brown was a Nobel Prize-winning event, not just because of the technology, but because of the beauty of what it did for Louise Brown’s family and for thousands and thousands, now millions of couples around the world who have been able to have children.” Dr. Mark Hughes is part of the team of scientists that took I.V.F. to the next level. In the early 1990s, they pioneered a technique that allows doctors to screen embryos for potentially lethal diseases. “The idea is to make a diagnosis before a pregnancy ever begins so that couples who are at high genetic risk can avoid that disease before they ever get pregnant.” It’s called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or P.G.D., a procedure in which couples go through I.V.F., even if they don’t have fertility problems. Doctors then test the DNA of the embryos and only implant healthy ones. “We can say embryo two, five and seven don’t have this genetic condition and they’ll be safe to transfer.” “Not long after Eden was born, we knew there was something that wasn’t exactly right.” When Randy and Caroline Gold’s second child, Eden, was 18 months old, she was diagnosed with mucolipidosis Type IV, or ML-4, an incurable genetic disease with a heartbreaking prognosis. “Kids with mucolipidosis Type IV will likely never walk, they’ll never talk. They’ll go blind by the time they’re 12 years old. And they will have a very limited lifespan.” “High five on that, girlfriend. Love you.” The Golds dreamed of having a third child, but they knew that dream carried big risks. “Because Caroline and I carry the same mutation for ML-4, we have a 25 percent risk with every pregnancy that we can have a child with that disease.” The Golds turned to Mark Hughes, and, using P.G.D., he was able to identify an embryo without the ML-4 mutation. Today, Eden has a healthy little sister, named Shai. “It was an absolute miracle.” P.G.D. has helped thousands of families like the Golds, but it has also reignited a familiar debate. “Is it leading to the creation of designer babies?” “As the science advances, ethical questions about when and where to draw the line when it comes to picking and choosing only the healthiest embryos. Critics say it can become a slippery slope.” “From the very first cases of embryo testing for genetic disease, the slippery slope of designer babies was in everybody’s mind — ‘Oh, we’ll be testing for anything.’” The use of embryo screening procedures like P.G.D. has expanded. They can now test for hundreds of diseases and chromosomal abnormalities. Yet much of the media attention has focused on the doctors who push those boundaries. “This is the room where the magic begins.” “It’s called gender selection.” For over a decade, Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg has been a flash point in the debate, constantly in the news for marketing the use of P.G.D., not just for medical necessity, but to let couples choose the sex of their child. “Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, Director of Fertility Institutes, says up to 90 percent of his patients come to him specifically because they want to decide whether they have a boy or girl.” “The technology was out there. It was being applied only to preventing diseases. Well, I’ve decided to open the door and expand it and say, listen, this is something that people are interested in, causes no harm, makes people happy. Let’s expand it.” Sex selection for non-medical reasons is illegal in many countries, but not in the United States, where some aspects of the fertility industry are loosely regulated. Many of the procedures cost upwards of $10,000. Yet Steinberg says he has no shortage of patients and is currently marketing a new cosmetic option for what he calls “21st-century parents-to-be.” “25 years ago, I predicted we would be choosing eye color. We’re able to do that now. It turns out, people want blue eyes. Not only are we able to assist with that, but we can offer them a choice of 30 shades of blue eyes.” These claims are met with great skepticism by many scientists and also raise ethical concerns. “Jeffrey Steinberg claims that he can give you a child with a particular eye color. I don’t know what he really means by that, but I think that, again, is an example of how we have to be very careful to draw lines that are clear and can be enforced.” Marcy Darnovsky runs a watchdog group that focuses on the social impact of reproductive and genetic technologies. “What counts as medical? What counts as enhancement? I mean, how could you draw a line?” Today, that question is more relevant than ever. “A medical breakthrough, or the first steps down a dangerous road?” In 2017, researchers at Oregon Health and Science University announced a groundbreaking development. “For the first time in the United States, scientists have edited the genes of human embryos.” Using a technology called Crispr, they were able to correct a defective gene that causes a potentially fatal heart disease, altering a trait that could be passed on to future generations. There was never any intention of creating a pregnancy, but like I.V.F. before it, the breakthrough was received with both excitement and alarm. “Critics worry Crispr could be used to create designer babies. Last year, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called genome editing a potential weapon of mass destruction. And Congress has banned turning gene-edited embryos into babies.” “I think a lot of the times those fears are largely overblown.” Dr. Paula Amato is a co-author of the research on editing human embryos. “When you think about the traits that people would like to enhance, things like intelligence or athleticism, we actually don’t know the genes that are responsible for those things. And it’s likely to be more than one gene. So even if you wanted to do that, at least at this point in time, it would be very difficult if not impossible to do.” But the ability to genetically modify embryos could be a new frontier, one in which it is no longer just about changing the genetic traits of an individual, but of all their descendants as well. “I think this is a slippery slope that we’re on. That doesn’t mean that we have to forgo everything along the way. It does mean that we have to make sure we have brakes and we have to make sure we have stopping points.” “All new technologies need to be carefully and properly assessed. I think you can’t have the Wild West. On the other hand, I think you can get yourself into a fear situation where you become paralyzed and can’t do anything.” “When any medical advance is made, any medical advance is made, there is first of all one success. Somebody had to be first. And then there are others.” “There’s six million of us, babies been born through I.V.F., which is fantastic. And I’m actually quite proud to say that it started with me.”

By Clyde Haberman

• June 10, 2018

For nine frustrating years, Lesley and John Brown tried to conceive a child but failed because of her blocked fallopian tubes. Then in late 1977, this English couple put their hopes in the hands of two men of science. Thus began their leap into the unknown, and into history.

On July 25, 1978, the Browns got what they had long wished for with the arrival of a daughter, Louise , a baby like no other the world had seen. She came into being through a process of in vitro fertilization developed by Robert G. Edwards and Patrick Steptoe. Her father’s sperm was mixed with her mother’s egg in a petri dish, and the resulting embryo was then implanted into the womb for normal development.

Louise was widely, glibly and incorrectly called a “test-tube baby.” The label was enough to throw millions of people into a moral panic, for it filled them with visions of Dr. Frankenstein playing God and throwing the natural order of the universe out of kilter. The reality proved far more benign, maybe best captured by Grace MacDonald , a Scottish woman who in January 1979 gave birth to the second in vitro baby, a boy named Alastair. Nothing unethical was at work, she told the BBC in 2003. “It’s just nature being given a helping hand.”

In this installment of its video documentaries, Retro Report explores how major news stories of the past shape current events by harking back to Louise Brown’s birth. If anything, more modern developments in genetics have raised the moral, ethical and political stakes. But the fundamental questions are essentially what they were in the 1970s with the advent of in vitro fertilization:

Are these welcome advances that can only benefit civilization? Or are they incursions into an unholy realm, one of “designer babies,” with potentially frightening consequences?

In vitro fertilization, or I.V.F., is by now broadly accepted, though it still has objectors, including the Roman Catholic Church. Worldwide, the procedure has produced an estimated six million babies, and is believed to account for 3 percent of all live births in some developed countries. Designer-baby fears have proved in the main to be “overblown,” said Dr. Paula Amato, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. “We have not seen it with I.V.F. in general,” she told Retro Report. “We have not seen it with P.G.D.”

P.G.D. is shorthand for pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, developed more than two decades ago and an offshoot of in vitro fertilization. Couples with family histories of serious diseases — cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs and Down syndrome are among the more common — can have their lab-created embryos tested for the probability of passing the flaws to their offspring. Technology in effect gives them a measure of control over their genetic fate. An embryo that looks O.K. under a microscope can be implanted in the mother’s uterus for normal development. (Typically, the others are discarded, itself a morally fraught practice for some people).

But what if the issue isn’t averting a dreadful disease? What if would-be parents, rather than leaving the matter to an old-fashioned roll of the genetic dice, resort to embryonic selection to guarantee the child is of a particular sex? It can be done with pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, director of The Fertility Institutes in New York , does it as matter of course.

“The technology was out there — it was being applied only to diseases,” Dr. Steinberg told Retro Report. He continued: “I’ve decided to open the door and expand it and say, ‘Listen, this is something that people are interested in, causes no harm, makes people happy. Let’s expand it.’” Though many doctors are strongly skeptical, he also offers P.G.D. to improve the odds that a baby will have a desired eye color, practically casting himself as the Benjamin Moore of the laboratory with his “choice of 30 shades of blue eyes.”

Still other gene-altering techniques are now in play. Mitochondrial transfer , for one, is intended for a woman whose genetic makeup makes it likely she will bear a child with a severe birth defect. DNA is removed from her egg and implanted in an egg from another woman that contains healthy energy-generating components known as mitochondria. This has given rise to the discomfiting term “three-parent baby.”

Then there is a gene-editing method called Crispr , the acronym for a mouthful of a procedure: Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. A team led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov, an American reproductive biologist, announced last year that it had applied the technique to change a human genome. With an enzyme called Cas9 acting as a scalpel, Crispr snipped away a mutated gene that can lead to thickened heart muscles and cause sudden death in young athletes.

In theory, it meant that if this embryo were implanted in a womb — it wasn’t in this team’s research — the child eventually born would not carry the mutation, and nor would any grandchildren. In short, that family’s germ line, the genetic material governing cellular lineage from one generation to the next, would have been permanently altered.

As Louise Brown prepares for her 40th birthday next month, moral debates over the new capabilities echo those that swirled around her parents, both now dead.

Some ethicists see only good in the prospect of eliminating diseases that condemn families to misery. After all, don’t childhood vaccinations amount to using technology for that very same purpose? Yet few people regard measles or polio shots as unacceptable fiddling with the natural world.

In a different camp are those who invoke slippery slopes, fearing unpredictable genies that may be unleashed. What, they ask, is to prevent gene editing from being used someday not to combat disease but, rather, to design people who are stronger or smarter than everyone else, able themselves to produce children programmed genetically for SAT scores of 1,600 or LeBron James point totals?

Then again, selecting genes to produce, say, a star basketball player is hardly a snap; height alone is influenced by tens of thousands of genetic variations. On the other hand (there is almost always another hand) the sheer expense of the procedures threatens to widen an already substantial gap between the wealthy and everyone else.

In 2017, an advisory group formed by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine endorsed gene editing in principle , but with a proviso that it be used only to deal with “serious diseases and disability” and only when no “reasonable alternative” exists.

Some scientists say it is unwise to be paralyzed by fear of the unknown. But Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society in Berkeley, Calif., is more skeptical. “We have to ask where is the stopping point,” Ms. Darnovsky said, and she suggested that policy discussions include “a much broader range of voices” than just scientists.

Perhaps Shakespeare can enter the conversation. He bequeathed words often invoked to encapsulate both hope for and dread of human capability. They’re from “The Tempest”: “O brave new world, that has such people in’t.”

The video with this article is part of a documentary series presented by The New York Times. The video project was started with a grant from Christopher Buck. Retro Report , led by Kyra Darnton, is a nonprofit media organization examining the history and context behind today’s news. To watch more, subscribe to the Retro Report newsletter , and follow Retro Report on YouTube and Twitter .

The Mysteries and Wonders of Our DNA

Women are much more likely than men to have an array of so-called autoimmune diseases, like lupus and multiple sclerosis. A new study offers an explanation rooted in the X chromosome .

DNA fragments from thousands of years ago are providing insights  into multiple sclerosis, diabetes, schizophrenia and other illnesses. Is this the future of medicine ?

A study of DNA from half a million volunteers found hundreds of mutations that could boost a young person’s fertility  and that were linked to bodily damage later in life.

In the first effort of its kind, researchers now have linked DNA from 27 African Americans buried in the cemetery to nearly 42,000 living relatives .

Environmental DNA research has aided conservation, but scientists say its ability to glean information about humans poses dangers .

That person who looks just like you is not your twin. But if scientists compared your genomes, they might find a lot in common .

You may opt out or contact us anytime.

Zócalo Podcasts

Designer DNA Isn’t Just for ‘Designer Babies’

Dystopian imagery makes it hard to assess the perils and promise of gene editing.

“Hey Mom, can you make me do the breaststroke like Michael Phelps?” Photo courtesy of Jade Alexandra Allen/ Flickr .

By Katie Hasson | January 17, 2018

When we talk about gene editing technology, we often talk about—but almost never deeply consider—the concept of designer babies. Consider this article in The New York Times , titled “ Gene Editing for ‘Designer Babies’? Highly Unlikely, Scientists Say .” The author, Pam Belluck, writes: “Now that science is a big step closer to being able to fiddle with the genes of a human embryo, is it time to panic? Could embryo editing spiral out of control, allowing parents to custom-order a baby with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s imagination or Usain Bolt’s speed?”

Reading the article, you might be left with the impression that even thinking about designer babies would be alarmist, unscientific, or just silly.

As public interest advocates who are focused on the social implications of human biotechnologies, my colleagues and I see how often the term “designer babies” serves as a distraction in these discussions—and we usually avoid using it ourselves. But recently I’ve been thinking that maybe it’s not the idea itself, but the way we’ve been talking about it, that’s the problem.

What if we could use discussion of designer babies productively, to unpack some of the complex issues surrounding gene editing? Actually talking about such imaginary babies—however far-fetched their existence seems—could help us start that discussion. Only by acknowledging that a future defined by designer DNA is possible can we decide whether we are comfortable with the risks, or even aspire to that future.

First of all, just thinking about designer babies could help people understand important aspects of new gene editing technologies, including the difference between two distinct applications that often get conflated. Both involve CRISPR, a relatively easy-to-use gene editing tool that has revolutionized genetic research. Using CRISPR, scientists can make pinpoint changes in the genes of many kinds of cells, from bacteria to plants to animals to humans. There is both great hope and great hype surrounding CRISPR, because it might prove useful for medical purposes. For example, editing the DNA of human blood cells could treat or even cure diseases like sickle cell or beta-thalessemia—providing tremendous relief to people who are sick.

Editing specialized cells in existing people is called somatic editing, and these kinds of genetic changes would not be passed on to the next generation. A very different application of CRISPR is required to make a designer baby: a scientist has to alter the genes in eggs, sperm, or early embryos, making changes that shape the human germline—the DNA passed down from one generation to the next.

Widespread media coverage has made this kind of gene editing experiment using human embryos seem ubiquitous. In fact, only a handful of researchers around the world have done this research and none have attempted to start a pregnancy using a genetically altered human embryo. Still, some of these researchers do hope to use germline gene editing for reproduction, and this is a disturbing prospect because it risks unintended permanent consequences, not only in terms of its safety, but also in its impact on society.

That’s why, before we decide whether to go forward with germline editing, we need to have a much broader society-wide conversation about what its risks are, technologically, socially, and morally. The way we talk about CRISPR makes that hard to do. For example, calling CRISPR a “gene editor” and comparing it to a word processor for DNA makes the technology seem relatively minor and familiar, when in fact it is neither. And vague terms like “genome surgery” conflate somatic gene therapies with embryo or germline editing. A more serious dialogue about designer babies could begin to change the conversation.

It also could help us unpack why “designer babies” come up in the media at all. Frequently, we find, proponents start talking about designer babies when they want to stop real discussion about the risks of gene editing. Hoover Fellow Henry I. Miller, for instance, dismisses concerns over genetically enhanced embryos as downright sinister—“excessive introspection” that will “ cause patients to suffer and even die needlessly ,” or, as prominent bioethicists Peter Sykora and Arthur Caplan recently charged, hold patients “hostage” to “fears of a distant dystopian future.”

In fact, there are no desperate patients who will suffer without germline gene editing, because by definition it will be done on people who don’t exist yet. Though some proponents claim that editing the genes of embryos is the best or only way to prevent the birth of children with inherited genetic diseases, another technology already exists that accomplishes the same thing. For decades, people who want children but carry genes known to cause disease have used pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to test embryos created via in vitro fertilization. With PGD, a few cells of a days-old embryo are tested for specific genetic conditions, allowing parents to identify and implant only those that are unaffected.

PGD carries its own ethical concerns: It prompts difficult decisions about what kind of children will be welcomed into the world and how those choices might stigmatize individuals already living with inherited conditions. But gene-editing human embryos raises such concerns to an even greater degree, by allowing parents to alter genes or even introduce new traits, and carries additional societal risks of increased inequality.

This brings up a third issue worth discussing: What makes a baby a designer baby in the first place? Some try to make a tricky distinction between “bad” reasons for germline gene editing, like enhancing appearance or talent, and “good” reasons for germline gene editing, like preventing serious diseases. Children who resulted from embryos edited for looks or smarts would be the “designer babies;” those created from embryos edited for disease prevention would be … something else.

But in fact such distinctions are difficult to parse in real life. Configuring the genetic makeup and traits of future children is a way of designing them—even if the choices seem unambiguously good, as when choosing to remove a genetic variant that causes serious disease. Any child born from an engineered embryo is, in a sense, a designer baby. Only considering the products of the most frivolous choices to be “designer babies” makes it seem as if there is a clear and easily enforceable line between acceptable and unacceptable uses of germline editing.

But we really don’t have a consensus about which inherited traits are desirable or undesirable. What counts as disease? What conditions are “serious” enough to correct? Who gets to decide? Beliefs can change over time in ways that underscore how problematic it would be to alter future generations. Up until 1973, to cite one example, homosexuality could be diagnosed as a psychological illness; we think about it much differently now.

Decisions to edit out diseases impose present-day values on future generations. Autism has been proposed as one of the serious diseases that might be prevented through embryo editing—but the definition of autism has changed radically over the past few decades. Would editing autism out of people’s genes really be a social good? Many people—advocates, authors, and even employers—argue that we should value the neurodiversity that the autism spectrum represents.

Already, a few scientists are drawing up lists of genes to target for enhancement, and transhumanist proponents of gene editing advocate that we should go beyond preventing disease. Some, including Oxford philosopher Julian Savulescu, argue that it would be unethical for parents not to try to enhance their children if the technology were safe and available. But that oversteps another important issue: If it were possible, who would provide consent? We don’t know the long-term health risks of germline gene editing for a future child or adult, nor for future generations as edited genomes are passed down. Would designer babies feel a loss of autonomy or individuality if they found out their DNA had been changed before they were born? Arguing that there is an ethical obligation to enhance children treats them like commodities—rather than people.

Finally, talking about designer babies can help us understand how germline gene editing would affect social inequality. Another meaning of “designer” is expensive or exclusive. It’s easy to imagine that if designer babies became possible, only the very wealthy would be able to access whatever real or perceived biological “improvements” the edits offered. The advantages that children of the wealthy already have would be reproduced in biology—or would at least be perceived as biological. But the problem is not just who has access : The idea that some genes are better than others has been the basis of dangerous social divisions and injustice, from racism to eugenics. Editing the genes of future generations could exacerbate the inequalities that already exist, and even introduce new forms.

Before we decide whether to go ahead with embryo or germline editing we need a broad societal consensus, and to gain that, the discussion must go beyond the experts and their issues, to a debate by the public at large .

When you dig deeply instead of dismissing concerns about designer babies, you can see what a complicated thicket of issues it presents. Human gene editing is complex—technically, socially, morally—and our discussion of this powerful emerging technology ought to involve everyone. Designer babies provide a figure around which people’s fears, hopes, and questions coalesce. We’re missing a chance to engage when we won’t talk about them.

Send A Letter To the Editors

Please tell us your thoughts. Include your name and daytime phone number, and a link to the article you’re responding to. We may edit your letter for length and clarity and publish it on our site.

(Optional) Attach an image to your letter. Jpeg, PNG or GIF accepted, 1MB maximum.

By continuing to use our website, you agree to our privacy and cookie policy . Zócalo wants to hear from you. Please take our survey !-->

Get More Zócalo

No paywall. No ads. No partisan hacks. Ideas journalism with a head and a heart.

The ethical dilemma of designer babies

• social change
• decision-making

Designer babies

Perspectives, challenging the legacies of eugenics in science, medicine, and technology, germline editing: made in germany, review: conceiving christian america: embryo adoption and reproductive politics, natalism and hipster eugenics.

Aggregated News

A recent press release I received got me thinking about how much we really care about kids. The press alert came from the Coalition to Stop Designer Babies, which is organizing internationally to oppose efforts by some scientists and would-be parents who want to overturn legal bans and prohibitions on Human Genetic Modification (HGM).

A so-called designer baby is defined as “an infant whose genes or other cellular components have been altered by practitioners at the embryo or pre-embryo stage, ostensibly for the purpose of avoiding passing on genetic diseases, or making babies that are smarter, taller or stronger,” according to the Humane Biotech organization.

Coalition spokesperson Dr. Daniel Papillon, a French scientist, notes “There is no unmet medical need for this technology, but the risks are immense. … It would increase ableism and entrench social inequality.” Like other opponents of this technology, he notes “HGM is the latest high-tech version of eugenics,” the belief that the human race could be improved if reproduction was controlled and only those who were deemed worthy of being born or of reproducing, should...

Related Articles

CGS is excited to announce the launch of a new anti-eugenics initiative that has been years in the making. Legacies of Eugenics in Science, Medicine, and Technology kicks off with a monthly essay series published at the Los Angeles Review of Books that will expose and contest the reemergence of eugenic ideas in contemporary health sciences, human biotechnology, public health, and medicine. Community and campus-based events featuring the authors are also being planned. The project is a collaboration among CGS...

This Woman Will Decide Which Babies Are Born

God help the babies! Or, absent God, a fertility startup called Orchid. It offers prospective parents a fantastical choice: Have a regular baby or have an Orchid baby. A regular baby might grow up and get cancer. Or be born...

Who deserves to have a baby?

Years ago, I interviewed for a residency position at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Standing before the domed Victorian building at the campus entrance, I couldn’t help but be in awe of the history of the place, the great...

Fertility clinics ‘pressuring’ young women to freeze their eggs

Gazing out at the Mediterranean from an idyllic rocky mountaintop, Sophie Hermann announced to her half a million Instagram followers that she had decided to freeze her eggs. Since that post in August, the 37-year-old former Made in Chelsea star...

The Center for Genetics and Society is fiscally sponsored by Tides Center, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Please visit www.tides.org/state-nonprofit-disclosures for additional information. © 2023 Tides Center, through the Center for Genetics and Society. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy . Terms of Use .

Netflix's 'Unnatural Selection' revived the designer baby debate. It's time to retire the term.

The new Netflix documentary “Unnatural Selection” is ostensibly about the potential downsides of the “biohacking” movement and the ethics of various forms of “gene editing.” But, whether intentionally or not, it also is largely engaged in scaremongering against the field of reproductive medicine and evidence-based, research-backed science used to help people conceive healthy babies.

Because when a documentary on a highly popular streaming platform starts contextualizing this form of life-saving medicine as the flippant, and ethically dubious, practice of creating “designer babies,” it feels not just inaccurate, but dangerous.

I suppose I have a "designer baby" in the sense that I have a small child who relishes in picking her own outfits, can spend endless time shopping for clothes, has asked for clothing in lieu of toys for her birthday and, at the tender age of 4, draws pictures of her own “dream come true outfits” and wants to learn to sew so she can make them. That's a designer baby. Sure.

But that’s the only kind of “designer baby” I have: The fact that she was conceived through in vitro fertilization using pre-implantation genetic diagnosis isn't what makes her one. The assistive reproductive technologies that helped bring her into the world are also more or less the very reason she’s alive.

When I was first pursuing parenthood, a number of endocrinological issues landed me at a reproductive endocrinologist’s office. But, soon enough, I learned that both my partner (at the time) and I were carriers of the genetic disorder Tay-Sachs. (Though the stereotype is that Tay Sachs gene carriers are only people of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, the genetic mutation responsible for the disease is also more common than average in certain French-Canadian, Amish and Cajun communities as well.) This meant that there was a 1 in 4 chance that any child we had together would be born with a fatal and untreatable regressive neurological disorder. Children with Tay-Sachs typically live to be toddler-age, at which point they lose function of their brains and organs and eventually die a horrible and painful death.

Opinion Doctor bias in the delivery room hurts one group of women the most

Having a child with Tay Sachs, though, is avoidable for parents who know their own statuses, thanks to the phenomenal advances in a field that is committed to helping more babies be born with long and healthy lives ahead of them.

My child wasn’t crafted in a lab to meet superficial preferences, or create to have certain traits that did not already exist in her genetic sequencing, as the term "designer baby" implies. Rather, the embryo that existed long before she ever became a person was biopsied to identify whether it was one of the ones that didn’t include genes that would kill her. She wasn’t “designed”; she was allowed to live.

There are constantly new advances in the field of reproductive endocrinology, and I am awed each time I hear about them. Just take the pre-implantation genetic screening that our doctors used to screen for Tay Sachs and was, when we underwent the procedure, being used to check for other chromosomal abnormalities, like ones that lead to miscarriage. Now, some individuals may elect to have their embryos tested if there is a family history of diseases like cystic fibrosis or muscular dystrophy and have only embryos without the single gene mutations transferred. This kind of genetic testing of embryos does not just stop children from being born with, and dying from, conditions ranging from Fragile X to breast cancer, but also allows for entire future generations to be born without them. Through this kind of genetic testing coupled with IVF, genetic inheritances that could lead to deaths can be stopped altogether, because only embryos that do not contain those genes would transferred during a cycle. That isn’t designing a baby; it is public health.

Those who take issue with the advances in ART and reproductive medicine are often quick to cite ethical questions, and even accuse parents and doctors of “playing God.” But all of these procedures are elective — and they are used not to “design” a baby, but to allow for parents to choose those embryos that stand the best chance of becoming babies and then children and then adults who can live long and healthy lives.

Opinion We want to hear what you THINK. Please submit a letter to the editor.

When ART and “designer babies” gets mentioned in the same breath as fledgling developments around biohacking and gene editing, it does a disservice not only to the physicians, embryologists and geneticists committed to helping more people have more healthy children, but is harmful to the consenting adults who have made the choice to opt-in (and pay for) this kind of treatment in their desire to have healthy children. And it feels doubly unfair to the children born from this kind of phenomenal scientific advancement — children who got the chance to be alive.

So let’s retire the phrase “designer baby” when we’re talking about the choices that people make in pursuit of a healthy family of their own. There’s nothing silly or frivolous about this pursuit, but rather quite the opposite. The individuals who pursue these advances — and the doctors and sciences who guide them through it — are all tasked with only the most serious of pursuits: giving individuals a shot at becoming parents to children who can one day have the choice of whether they want to be parents themselves.

Jennifer Gerson is an Atlanta-based writer and reporter whose work has appeared in Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Teen Vogue, Yahoo, The Guardian and Mic. She is a 2015 Maggie Award recipient for her reporting work on topics surrounding reproductive health and reproductive justice. 

Designing Life: Should Babies Be Genetically Engineered?

NEW YORK — The increasing power and accessibility of genetic technology may one day give parents the option of modifying their unborn children, in order to spare offspring from disease or, conceivably, make them tall, well muscled, intelligent or otherwise blessed with desirable traits.

Would this change mean empowering parents to give their children the best start possible? Or would it mean designer babies who could face unforeseen genetic problems? Experts debated on Wednesday evening (Feb. 13) whether prenatal engineering should be banned in the United States. 

Humans have already genetically modified animals and crops, said Sheldon Krimsky, a philosopher at Tufts University, who argued in favor of a ban on the same for human babies. "But in the hundreds of thousands of trails that failed, we simply discarded the results of the unwanted crop or animal."

Unknown consequences

Is this a model that society wants to apply to humans, making pinpoint genetic modifications, only to "discard the results when they don't work out?" Krimsky asked during an Intelligence Squared Debate held in Manhattan. He added that assuming no mistakes will occur would be sheer hubris.

He and fellow ban proponent Lord Robert Winston, a professor of science and society and a fertility expert at Imperial College in London, focused on the uncertainty associated with the genetic underpinnings of traits. The two also addressed the consequences of manipulating genes. [ 5 Myths About Fertility Treatments ]

" Even [for] height , one of the most heritable traits known, scientists have found at least 50 genes that account for only 2 to 3 percent of the variance in the samples," Krimsky said. "If you want a tall child, marry tall."

Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now

Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.

Mother Nature doesn’t care

Meanwhile, their opponents, who opposed the ban, talked of empowering parents to give their children a healthy life, even if it meant giving their offspring traits they themselves could not pass down.

Lee Silver, a professor of molecular biology and public policy at Princeton University, urged the audience members to look at someone sitting next to them.

"That person and you differ at over 1 million locations in your DNA [deoxyribonucleic acid] . Most [of these variations] don't do anything," Silver said. "[But] even if you are a healthy adult, 100 [of these] can cause deadly childhood disease in your children or grandchildren."

"Mother Nature is a metaphor," he continued. "And it is a bad metaphor, because in reality inheritance is a game of craps … It won't have to be that way in the future." 

His fellow ban opponent, Nita Farahany, a professor of law and of genome sciences and policy at Duke University, attacked the idea that uncertainty should prevent the use of the technology, pointing out that reproduction, completely unaided by technology, involves much uncertainty.

"We are not going to ban natural sex ," Farahany said.

Already possible

A significant portion of the debate focused on a particular technology known as mitochondrial transfer . While the majority of DNA resides in a cell's nucleus, a small amount is contained in the cell's energy factories, called mitochondria. This mitochondrial DNA is passed from mother to child. In rare cases, women have mitochondrial defects they can pass down to their children, causing devastating problems or even death.

Mitochondrial transfer can replace such defective mitochondrial DNA with that from a donor, allowing affected mothers to avoid passing these defects on to their children, who then carry genetic material from three parents (the father and two mothers, including the donor).

Opponents of a ban argued it would prevent women with mitochondrial disorders from having healthy children of their own.

"I am not here to defend every type of genetic engineering. I don't think we are ready as a society to embrace it all," Farahany said.

Rather than an outright ban, she and Silver argued for a middle ground, which would allow for certain procedures once they had been shown to be safe and effective. An emerging scientific consensus says mitochondrial transfer would fit into this category, she said.

Winston disagreed.

"We know fiddling with mitochondrial DNA may make a massive difference to what happens to nuclear DNA. … Abnormal children have been born as result of mitochondrial transfer," he said. "I think, in preventing one genetic disease, you are likely to cause another genetic disease." [ The 10 Most Mysterious Diseases ]

Society should instead focus on the enormous importance of environmental influences in health, Winston said. "What we should be trying to do, rather than risk making abnormal babies, is to improve the environment so the DNA functions in the best possible ways."

Neither Farahany nor Silver argued in favor of allowing parents to modify their children to ensure other traits that are less medically necessary, but nevertheless desirable, such as higher intelligence or blue eyes .

"What I think parents care about most is promoting the health of their children," Silver said.

Leading to eugenics?

Both sides referred to the specter of eugenics , an idea embraced by the Nazis, which holds that selective breeding can be used to improve the human race.

Winston and Krimsky pointed out that genetically modifying children to choose desirable traits evoked this approach. Meanwhile, Farahany noted that some of the worst abuses of government in recent history involved attempts to control reproduction. How would a ban on the genetic modification of children be enforced, she asked, would all babies be forcibly tested?  

An audience votedeclared the opponents of the ban the winners.

Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience . We're also on Facebook  & Google+

'You probably didn't inherit any DNA from Charlemagne': What it means when your DNA 'matches' a historic person's

Protein in human sweat may protect some people against Lyme disease

'Uncharted territory': El Niño to flip to La Niña in what could be the hottest year on record

Most Popular

• 2 Intel unveils largest-ever AI 'neuromorphic computer' that mimics the human brain
• 3 Scientists are one step closer to knowing the mass of ghostly neutrinos — possibly paving the way to new physics
• 4 50-foot 'king of the serpents' may have been the biggest snake to ever live
• 5 Giant, 82-foot lizard fish discovered on UK beach could be largest marine reptile ever found
• 2 Giant, 82-foot lizard fish discovered on UK beach could be largest marine reptile ever found
• 3 What's the largest waterfall in the world?
• 4 Southern Grasshopper mouse: The tiny super-predator that howls at the moon before it kills
• 5 Global 'time signals' subtly shifted as the total solar eclipse reshaped Earth's upper atmosphere, new data shows

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Can Med Educ J
• v.11(1); 2020 Mar

Designer babies

Manish ranpara.

1 Univerity of Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Jane and Elaine are best friends preparing a dinner in the year 2100. Jane recently gave birth to Michael, a boy with an apparently predetermined future. For a few thousand dollars, Michael’s parents purchased a genetic package named “brain and brawn,” which promised Michael Herculean strength and the intellect of Minerva * . “Good looks” were purchased as an optional extra, and insurance for genetic code failure was another dent in the wallet. “It’s an investment” the sales person explained. “The returns form a perfect child will be greater than returns earned from investments in real-estate.”

In the year 2050, the pharmaceutical industry started pumping money into the genetics field after realizing that that they could no longer sell recycled minor modifications of drugs. Realizing that people were voluntarily sending genetic material to ancestral databases and getting tested for mutations of unknown clinical significance, the industry purchased genetic information from vendors and started creating the largest ever database of genetic information. A few marketing and public relation stunts later, everyone wanted a genetically engineered baby.

“It’s called engineering because you can pick and choose sweetheart! They know the genetic profile of my entire family, and apparently I am also a descendent of Genghis Khan!” exclaimed Jane, as she explained the concept to Elaine. Like a custom-built clock, Adam and I have been able to select the genes of Michael precisely. He will be tall, handsome, and intelligent. He will be perfect. Who doesn’t want to be perfect?”

Elaine was skeptical. Growing up in a small-town community with strong religious values, she had never been the party starter. She was infamous for stirring the pot during the most sensitive moments. Her opinionated criticism did make her respected, and the debates she often started made eyebrows rise, and occasionally fists. Working part-time, she struggled to make ends meet. The thought of a market existing to design babies puzzled and worried Elaine. She viewed it as selective breeding, and an act against the natural processes of God. “What is perfect?” Elaine asked. “Doesn’t it bother you that your definition of perfect has been corrupted by the mass media? How can imperfection create perfection? Do you think it is ethical to design a baby while another baby starves elsewhere?”

Sensing a debate, Jane attempted to dodge the bullet. “I respect your point of view, but I do believe that my child will be appreciative knowing that I have done what’s best for him. Think about all the babies who could be saved from life-threatening illness at birth by genetic modification. A life is priceless.” Elaine entertained the idea for a minute, and then asked if they can also prevent non-life-threatening illnesses. “Of course!” exclaimed Jane. “They can also sell a beauty package which prevents skin moles, wrinkles and excessive cellulite from developing.”

It’s 2150 and the artificial intelligence industry has finally made the epic entrance predicted by blockbuster Hollywood movies at the turn of the millennium. People now sleep with a robotic assistant that does more than turn the lights off (the selling point is that it “satisfies every need”), and mobile phones are redundant thanks to Super PA TM , a pea-sized supercomputer designed as a personal assistant living in the world wide web. All jobs are performed by robots whose sole purpose is to serve their master (rumors mention a revolution). Peter is one in a family of designer baby brothers who grew-up to be 7 feet and develop a chiseled jaw. Like most people in his generation, he laughs when his grandparents call him tall, because clearly, he is average. Three of his brothers have poor health, and a lawsuit continues with the now defunct genetic industry. The industry claims that good health for designer babies was never a guarantee because of several factors including the environment. They claim it was all in the fine print. Several lawsuits later, the genetics industry invested and transformed into the robotics industry. Peter is part of this industry and he has a vision - a vision where humans are perfect. A world where humans can run faster because of robotic legs and think quicker because of robotic brains. His friends question his ideologies, but he reassures them: “People will be tall, handsome, and intelligent. They will be perfect. Who doesn’t want to be perfect?”

Conflicts of interest: The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.

Funding: None.

* Terms and conditions apply. Read the small print with a magnifying glass for details, before you tick the box.

Just another WordPress site

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!

The Pros and Cons Of Having a Designer Baby

You have a sharp nose that you want your future child to have, as well as your partner’s beautiful eyes. Thanks to advances in modern medical technologies, these wishes can now turn into realities in the form of a designer baby .  A “designer baby” is a baby whose genetic makeup has been artificially selected in-vitro by genetic engineering to ensure the presence or absence of particular genes or characteristics.

Table of Contents

The term “Designer Baby” was taken from “Designer clothing” which describes the disapproving implication of the transformation of babies. Liberal technophiles, Libertarians, and transhumanists are the people who support it. This process of creating a “designer baby” is often questioned because of ethical reasons.

Designer Babies Pros and Cons

As with all novel technologies, there are some pros as well as cons of having a designer baby. So, here is a list of the designer babies pros and cons that you should know:

Pros of Designer Babies

Even though there are many questions about genetically modifying babies for being ethical and for moral reason, there are many pros to this type of treatment. ( Genetic Engineering of Babies )

Pros of genetically engineered baby

• Installing a better understanding of genetics for biologists.
• It increases human lifespan for up to 30 years.
• helps to keep up with modern technologies
• It might help prevent genetic diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s Disease, down syndrome, Spinal Muscular Atrophy, and many others.
• It reduces the risk of inherited medical conditions such as anemia, obesity, diabetes, cancer, and much more.
• Enhancement of children.
• It allows parents to give their child a healthy life.
• Genetically engineering babies is an option, not a requirement for all parents. For those that disagree with it, they don’t have to engineer their child.
• Taking folate during pregnancy will reduce the risk of a child developing autism. It is an example of medically altering a child and it is considered ethically acceptable.
• It helps to eliminate mitochondrial disorders.
• Parents can set their own limits for genetically engineering their baby.
• The government does not have the right to control means of reproduction.
• It allows parents to give the child genes that they do not carry.

With all scientific and technological advancements, there is ethical disparagement, the ethical viewpoints should not cease the advancement of technology.

1. It will help increase the life expectancy

By editing out an unborn baby’s defective genes and only retaining the healthy genes, the baby will grow up healthier. Therefore, you may increase their overall life expectancy by up to 30 years.

2. Positive Influence on the Baby

A designer baby will have an overall positive take on various parts of life. Some aspects of your baby’s life that you can surely create a positive impact on are your baby’s health, your baby’s intelligence, your baby’s looks and more.

3. Altering the lifestyle earlier

You might influence the child’s thinking and life by adding various influences to it. Instead of influencing the child later in life, designing a baby may help you create some similar types of influences but even before the baby is born. Like instead of pushing the baby to study hard and do well in the academic field, you can already enhance your baby’s mental capabilities before your baby is even born.

4. It reduces the chances of genetic disorders

When you use the genetic modification technology to create a designer baby, it will help to reduce the chances of various genetic disorders in your baby. In many instances, these are not only a means to reduce your baby’s chances of getting affected with certain health conditions, but are also a way of increasing your baby’s chances of survival.

5. You call the shots

As a parent, you have the say in what all parts of your baby’s life you want to change for the better. You will be able to set all the limits and keep a check on what all changes your baby will go through and how much of the same you want to be done.

6. Other Benefits

• Fewer chances of getting genetic diseases
• Provides a better understanding of genetics for biologists and medical professionals
• Eliminates the occurrence of known diseases in future generations

Cons of designer babies

Although there are some positive things which can be obtained from using genetic engineering used on unborn babies, it is often wondered if parents will have the “right” reasons to genetically modify their baby, or if reasoning will become more superficial. Here are some of the cons associated with the genetic engineering of babies .

Cons of genetically engineered baby

• Genetic engineers are not perfect people and cannot 100% properly evaluate every gene. They are more than likely mistakes will be made.
• If the process is not done carefully, the embryo could be accidentally terminated.
• The technology used is not 100% safe yet. It is only in the experimental stages at this point.
• A baby cannot consent to have its body altered; therefore some do not believe it’s right as parents do not “own” their children
• Parents may use this technology for superficial purposes, such as purposely seeking out a blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby for appearance concerns only.
• They could create a gap in society. “Designer” babies would most likely be better looking, smarter, etc. This would create “classes” between designer and nondesigner babies.
• Because the technology is so new, it is unknown whether the babies will affect the gene pool. This can cause difficulties later on throughout the baby’s family tree.
•  Because most people will seek out good-looking, intelligent babies with other optimum characteristics, everyone will be relatively similar.
• This procedure is not cheap, and not everyone would be able to afford it. Could create prejudice between “Designer” and “nondesigner” babies.

1. Not error-free

The process of genetic modification to create designer babies is still in its nascent experimental stage, and it needs time and research to progress forward. Genetics are not always a hundred percent sure, which means that it is very likely possible that error may come up at some point in the future in the case of designer babies. Researchers worry that when they will do everything possible to eradicate any illness in the baby while modifying the genes, an accidental error could give rise to some new form of illness, something they may not be aware of how to treat.

2. Ethical And Moral Issues

It is almost the same as carrying out an abortion when you have plenty of choices to eliminate the unwanted ones. In some cases, the parents have also gone ahead and aborted the baby, depending on their reasons for creating the baby in the first place. Sometimes parents do it for money they will get as compensation for donating the stem cells and have no thought whatsoever of the baby.

3. Violation Of Your Baby’s Rights

When you go ahead with the process of creating a designer baby, you essentially change the life and mind of a living human being without taking the person’s permission or choice in regard. In this case, you will alter your baby’s mental, emotional and physical makeup for life, without your baby having any say in whether or not it is something your baby wanted or not. It is a process in which your baby will be used as a scientific experiment, instead of being treated more like a human being.

4. Can Create A Marked Gap In Society

If more parents decide to go in for designer babies, the world will soon be divided into a class of babies who are designer babies as compared to non-designer babies. As a result, those babies who are created as part of the designer baby series will feel more superior to those who are born naturally without any form of genetic manipulation. Those who follow social norms believe that it could lead to a hostile environment in the future.

5. Other Shortcomings

• Not completely error-free and could lead to the death of the unborn baby.
• May accidentally give rise to new forms of illnesses that scientists are not yet aware of
• Is not affordable by all and will create a class divide where only the rich can afford designer babies
• Takes away from the child’s individual personality
• May remove certain genes that could have been good for the baby’s overall development and growth

Should We Make Designer Babies? Watch this video 

Sharing is caring!

Related Posts

Do We Really Need GMOs to Feed the World?

How to Boost Immune System to Fight HPV

Coronavirus Vaccine – Things You Should Know

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

• Environment
• Information Science
• Social Issues
• Argumentative
• Cause and Effect
• Classification
• Compare and Contrast
• Descriptive
• Exemplification
• Informative
• Controversial
• Exploratory
• What Is an Essay
• Length of an Essay
• Generate Ideas
• Types of Essays
• Structuring an Essay
• Outline For Essay
• Essay Introduction
• Thesis Statement
• Body of an Essay
• Writing a Conclusion
• Essay Writing Tips
• Drafting an Essay
• Revision Process
• Fix a Broken Essay
• Format of an Essay
• Essay Examples
• Essay Checklist
• Essay Writing Service
• Pay for Research Paper
• Write My Research Paper
• Write My Essay
• Custom Essay Writing Service
• Admission Essay Writing Service
• Pay for Essay
• Academic Ghostwriting
• Write My Book Report
• Case Study Writing Service
• Dissertation Writing Service
• Coursework Writing Service
• Lab Report Writing Service
• Do My Assignment
• Buy College Papers
• Capstone Project Writing Service
• Buy Research Paper
• Custom Essays for Sale

Can’t find a perfect paper?

• Free Essay Samples
• Architecture

Designer Babies

Updated 12 December 2023

Subject Architecture ,  Identity

Downloads 40

Category Art ,  Science ,  Sociology

Topic Design

Technological Advancements and the Invention of Designer Babies

There have been technological advancements in the recent years, and the majority of countries in the world has witnessed this. One of the most interesting advancements in the biomedical sector has been the invention of designer babies. Designer babies refer to a wide range of reproductive techniques such as replacing versions of genes linked to certain diseases and enhancing certain attributes in a baby. These adjustments, however, are not ethically right since God's work is termed to be perfect.

The Exploitation of the Human Individual

The production of a designer baby is, in my opinion, exploitation of the existence of the human individual. A designer baby is treated as an object and not a natural individual. This is not compatible with the human dignity that every individual is entitled to. The designer baby will not be accorded dignity since it will not be thinking for his good but to achieve a different goal. The designer baby is treated as a means only and not as an end. This is an abuse of the human dignity.

Social Differences and the Gap Between the Rich and the Poor

Designer babies bring about social differences and the gap between the rich and the poor. The rich have the financial capability to access designer babies' services. They can choose the traits that they want the child to have. This also demonstrates the desire for perfectionism, and this is not compatible with being a good parent. An insistence of a parent to have a child of a certain sort be it an athlete, musician or politician amount to parental tyranny. These attempts can constraint the prospects of a child to flourish as the parents try to preferences and expectations on a child. Providing the child with the genes to be an athlete does not mean that the child will enjoy sports. The child may be having a talent that will make him useful to the entire globe, and this should be nurtured. Children should be appreciated as gifts and be accepted as they come.

Sex Discrimination and Imbalance

Designer babies have brought about sex discrimination. The parents can choose their preferred sex of the child especially when they are seeking to have a gender balance among their children. It is, however, wrong to reject a boy or a girl when there is no medical need, and it is morally irresponsible. It is not acceptable morally to discard an embryo simply based on sex. Arguing by gender balance is weak since there is no balancing at all but rather sexual discrimination against one gender and discarding an otherwise healthy embryo. Most African countries view female sex as undesirable. Designer babies would cause the number of females to decrease in such countries. There has to be a balance between the number of males and females since the two genders are interdependent.

Advantages of Genetic Babies in Treating Life-Threatening Conditions

The production of genetic babies can, however, be advantageous especially when there is a need to treat certain kinds of life-threatening conditions. The mechanism can save lives however it should be used in moderation and only in case of saving life and not in cases such as sex selection which is not crucial to the child.

The Ethical Concerns of Designer Babies

The production of designer babies is not ethically right. A child has to be left to grow naturally without forcing him to have certain skills and traits. Every child is special, and God made him for a reason. Modifying the child only serves to correct God's work, and this is punishable by death.

Deadline is approaching?

Wait no more. Let us write you an essay from scratch

Related Essays

Related topics.

Find Out the Cost of Your Paper

Type your email

By clicking “Submit”, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy policy. Sometimes you will receive account related emails.