Designer Babies

Designer Babies

Thirty years from now, will “designer babies” become the majority of the world’s population? “Designer babies” are those babies whose genetic makeup has been artificially selected by genetic engineering methods, with the presence of in vitro fertilization in order to select the best traits for the baby. It could be a good option for parents to have a choice but the “designer babies” method can present many negative aspects, risks and much danger. Nowadays, some people agree on using this method in order to conceive their future baby as perfect as possible, but they forget that in the future this could lead to a serious world problem. The world as we have known it since the beginning of times, would change completely and perhaps the only human species from this “perfect race” would be its population.

Even though the method of “designer babies” has high probabilities of success when applied, and offers many positive solutions to people, some persons still oppose to it because of health risks and religious aspects. There are several safety concerns about the techniques that are being used; genetic modification introduces genes at random places in the genome. There is the possibility that an inserted gen arrive in the wrong target genome in a way that disrupts the function of another gene crucial for survival. Many scientists in the US are already working with these techniques even though they are not sure if the results will be the expected. "I would predict that by next year, we will have determined sex with 100 percent certainty on a baby, and we will have determined eye color with about an 80 percent accuracy rate," said fertility specialist Dr. Jeff Steinberg, director of the Fertility Institute in Los Angeles, California. As a matter of fact, this uncertainty on the methods, in addition to the very little experience, and the extreme techniques for preventing a non-healthy and perfect child is little by little affecting human nature. For example, Germany is an extremist country where PGD is used to diagnose any kind of disorder the fetus may have; if it is found that the fetus has any disease, the pregnancy must be terminated. In contrast, countries like the United Kingdom, Denmark, Italy, and Portugal, among others, are some of the countries where Genetic Engineering is not permitted. "I think it's very important that we not bury our head in the sand and pretend these advances are not happening," Dr. Steinberg said. Even if the techniques for making designer babies are perfected within the next decade, they should be applied in the service of disease prevention, not improving on nature.

But as much as “designer babies” demonstrate how positive impact they can have in the human society, some persons still oppose to it because of health risks and religious and ethical aspects. First of all, even though the method of genetic prescreening has been experimented in an important country such as the United States, “designer babies” are not 100% accurate and safe. Scientists still have to make more studies and perfect this particular method, since it still presents some errors and it needs improvement. Also, many people believe that this method implies murder since embryos that are useless at one point are destroyed, and this could be considered as taking someone’s life. Those who have strong faith and are very devoted into catholic religion, consider this termination

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