Why Designer Babies Should Be Banned
What are designer babies? Designer babies are babies that are genetically engineered with technology for specially selected traits. Although this seems like a exceptional idea, there are many negative impacts of designer babies. There are many reasons why designer babies should not exist. It is not 100% safe and could fail, it could create a gap in society, it is expensive, the baby itself cannot consent in having its body altered, and it is unknown whether it can it can affect the gene pool, it could cause difficulties later on throughout the baby's family tree.
The first reason why designer babies should not exist is because it is not 100% safe and there is plenty of room for mistakes to happen. Geneticists are not perfect people, and an error may occur at some point. Technology is still at its experimental stages, so it is unknown whether this will affect the gene pool. This could cause problems later on in the family tree. One wrong move and the baby could have a defect. If that baby ever has a child later on, and the generations keeps going on, this will affect the population. If the process is not done carefully, the embryo might accidentally be terminated.
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Only the rich would be able to afford it. There are different costs for the different changes the parents want. For the gender selection, it cost about $18,000, for the PGD, about $4,000, for the medications, $4000, for the IVH, $8,000. Altogether, that is one hefty price. This just means that the rich have even more advantages. They can have a luxurious mansion, live a healthy lifestyle, never having to starve, having all their wants met, and on top of that, the perfect child they always wanted. How is that
From a deontological perspective designer babies would be unethical because the idea goes against respect for and the dignity of an individual. The child’s value is no longer based on personality or character, but instead is based on whether their DNA represents the traits most desired in the society in which they live.
One reason designer babies should be illegal is because of its negative effects on society. Many believe designer babies “ [will cause] a greater gap in society between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots,’ or rather the ‘ideal’ and ‘non-ideal’ humans” (Catalano). Those who want their unborn child to be genetically adjusted would have to have enough money to have this procedure done. This could result in more drastic differences in wealth and socio-economic standing. Another gap in society that would come from designer babies is the unfair advantage someone with modified genetics could have. One person would have to work on a certain skill to get very good at it, whereas a genetically modified person would be programmed to be good
I personally do not agree with the idea of designer babies as you are changing the outcome of your baby and you are not accepting them as they are, you are changing their appearance the traits they would have had. You can’t use the excuse for medical reasons as cancer or heart disease develop over time and not when the baby is born. Now having a child is a big responsibility and if you are already deciding how you want your kid and what you want them to look like you might not be ready for a child. You should accept your child for who they are if you get a kid with a bad personality what's the point of being a parent if you can’t show them the right path or how to act. The child will no longer be yours but be the laboratories “experiment”.
Designer babies could have a positive effect on the future because there could be no serious early onset diseases. In the article by Jack Hanson, “Designer Babies”, it states, “If mothers design their babies with no diseases or a strong immune system, they would not get illnesses like cancer or asthma.” (Designer
In designing an engineered baby, it is never a guaranteed that they will be born unharmed or mentally stabled. The tools that are used can potentially harm the embryo, leaving it to be destroyed, if the perfect baby is not created it is eliminated. Genetically manipulated gene are recognized to cause serious diseases or disabilities after studies are done. A gene can often have more than one usage. While it can be used to cure a disease, and help stop an inherited illness, this study should not be done on living embryos. It causes more harm than it does good, affecting and destroying the unborn causing harm. Also creating a designer baby can cause a link to racism. In the book “A Brave New World of Designer Babies” by Sonia Suter, it explains how designer babies are linked to racism and how thanks to (neo)eugenics people might want to use this to eliminate or reduce the prevalence of ethnic groups. This is a perfect example of why genetically modified humans should not be allowed. It will cause harm to children, and causes a division between children and young adults. For instance, schools, parks, playgrounds, and many more public zones, will be divided. A child can also be picked on because they are designer children, or they can be bullied by not being designer babies, and not being in the perfect image. It can cause serious separation and divide children into adulthood. This will make individuals feel bad about themselves and will affect their mental state. Having a
This following essay will discuss about how the advantages of designer babies potentially act as the enhancer that emerge the harms in the society. It is just because of this advanced benefits that introduced the disadvantages of designer babies. It is likely that there will be both moral and safety objections as there has been for in vitro fertilization, stem cell science and early gene therapy. The moral objections range from concerns about the manipulation of the germline to worries about the patenting or commercialization of the technology itself. The safety concerns, much like we saw with early recombinant DNA research include both potential dangers to the offspring of patients treated and to the
A designer baby is the word used to describe the act of genetically modifying the genes of babies. They can also screen embryos for any disorders and could even been uses for modification of characteristics such as gender eye colour and even intelligence. Advanced technologies have allowed doctors to be able to screen embryos for any genetic disorders to enable them to select healthy embryos.
According to Opposing Viewpoints(2017), designer babies “refers to children who develop from embryos that are selected or genetically modified in a lab setting, called in vitro.” The reason for this process is to ensure that the parents of the child in question has certain characteristics or traits. Gene therapy is used correct faulty genes in vitro to prevent inherited diseases.
Why can’t we just try and figure out why we can’t make sure that designer babies are safe?Many people agree that designer babies are a great idea, but they don't think that it is safe. But there are researchers on this topic, and they haven't even looked into the problem of the safety. People can change if they don't want their child to have the wrong gene changing their child's life in a amazing way, but it isn't safe; so they don't do it because it isn't safe, why don't you try to make it safe. Doctors and parents could choose to change their child's life for the good but they decide to not because it isn't safe, WELL MAKE IT SAFE! Or maybe people do not want their child to be unethical, or unequal well since something is unethical doesn't make it unequal.
The most mutual and well-known reason why designer babies should not exist is that scientists should not play God. Many people make the testament they will love their children no matter what and that being a good parent is not about enhancing their children, but accepting and loving them for who they are naturally (Fletcher). Eric
It is right to choose the features of the baby because it prevents future diseases, reduces the risk of babies with serious disorders like cancer. Designer babies carry genes that their parents may not keep, this means that the new genes that are desired will now be in the family gene pool. Furthermore, designer babies can get rid of the gene for a past family disease or disorder. The positive impact is that ‘designer babies’ allow parents to give their child a healthy life because parents would not pick the characteristics and features that will make their baby unhealthy. Designer babies will give the parents the opportunity to create their ‘perfect’ child. For instance, parents can choose for their baby to have red hair, blue eyes, gender
I do not think the idea of a designer baby is a good one. It would introduce more complications to an already problematic world. Some of this problems would shape the whole world. Some just don’t seem right. Discrimination, job competition, and perhaps creating new genetic diseases are just some problems that could evolve just from selecting your unborn child’s genes. Also,
When it comes to the subject of designer babies, or even the thought of being able to create a 'perfect' child there is either controversy or pure relief. The reason being because when it comes to designing babies there is good as well as bad. For example some may say being able to genetically modify a baby so it has no chances of coming out deformed or even with mental or psychical diseases and disabilities is a miracle. Others may say that in the law of ethics this can not be acceptable. The fact the you're choosing your child's fate is ‘wrong’ stating that whether a child ends up with a disease is life, we should not be able to control it. Which makes sense yes, unless you're talking about two parents who can't have children because
Designer babies are embryos that have genetically modified chosen by parents or science. “The perfect child” so to say. They pick their desired traits for the child so they can have the child they’ve always wanted. In this process they first screen the embryo to see if there are any genetic defects that were conceived through fertilization. There is nothing new about the designer babies 1989 and born in 1990. This is not new technology. You can change anything from gender, appearance, intelligence, disease, and personality. A few of the pros could be things like reduce risk of genetic diseases, reduces risk of inherited medical conditions, better chance the child will succeed with life, increased life span, and can give child genes that that the parents do not carry. Those are just a few. Designer babies can be used for even spare parts such as, hearts, liver, kidney, etc. That is not right in my opinion. They can be used for many things. Designer babies are believe it or not very expensive. With the creation of these babies there had to be the first designer baby made. The first designer baby was created in the U.S. in 2000. Doctors used screening techniques to test the embryos of Lisa and Jack Nash. They chose the embryos that would be an exact cell match to their daughter Molly. Their daughter, Molly, suffers from a genetic disorder called Fanconi Anemia which causes bone marrow
How does it sound to walk into the doctor’s office, choose what attributes you want your baby to have, and then having that exact baby 9 months later? Although this may seem quite harmless to most, the negative effects of designer babies are tremendous: the lack of diversity in our population, violation of a specific set of laws designed to protect humans, going against Christian views, and even destroying the roots of human nature. With genetic engineering biotechnology, such as Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (or CRISPR), new and unique altercations are being done to revolutionize many aspects of our lives. Along with astounding benefits that can come from these biotechnologies, many people have come up with crazy ideas, such as these designer baby ideas, that could be potentially harmful to our society.