The man is the most beautiful and intelligent creation of God. But human is over ambitious too. For fulfillment of his desires and needs, he had created technology. And now technology has reached to such an extent that it can create a human. Yes ! If technology combines with biology it can create the most powerful, intelligent and perfect human. Biotechnology enables us to design the desired characters in human. You can choose the super characters and implant in your infant.
Nowadays biotechnology is providing us with designer babies. Designer baby is a baby whose genetic makeup has been artificially selected by genetic engineering combined with In Vitro Fertilization also known as IVF to ensure the presence or absence of particular genes or characteristics seeing as we are a bunch of eight graders simplified its, using biotechnology to pretty much choose what type of baby you want. You may also want to know what In Vitro Fertilization is, IVF is “one assisted reproductive technology. It is the process fertilization by manually combining an egg and a sperm in a laboratory dish and then transferring the embryo to the uterus.”
Pros of Designer Babies –
Designer babies can almost eliminate the problem of genetic disease. If they find an egg that doesn’t carry the gene, they can implant it and reduce the chances for this disease greatly. If a certain genetic disease is only passed down through males in the family, the family can also choose to have little girl opposed to a baby boy which could potentially carry down the genes that the males carry.
Although there are many questions of if genetically modifying babies is ethical and for the moral reason, there are many positives to this type of treatment:
- Installs a better understanding of genetics for genealogists and biologists.
- Increases human lifespan up to 30 years.
- Prevents genetic diseases such as down syndrome, Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s Disease, Spinal Muscular Atrophy, and many others.
- Reduces risk of inherited medical conditions such as obesity, anemia, diabetes, cancer, and much more.
- Keeps up with modern technologies.
- 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.
- Children are already engineered by parents in many ways. Prenatal supplements, education, religion, and morals are always parents control their child.
- Taking folate during pregnancy reduces the risk of a child developing autism. This is an example of medically altering a child and it is considered ethically acceptable.
- Parents set their own limits for genetically engineering their baby.
- A complete ban will increase the demand and send people to unauthorized biologists or overseas to receive the same treatment that the US is capable of.
- The government does not have the right to control means of reproduction.
- Some environmental factors are inevitable so preventative measures should be taken as well.
- Allows prospective parents to give their 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.
- Although not all the kinks in this newly developing technology are fixed, with more clinical trials and experiments.
Cons of Designer Babies:
Since the babies genes have been altered and played withdraw the parents would have some type of expectations for their child that the child cannot meet. You can design your baby to have a greater level of intelligence but instead choose not to care, not want to learn and not want to be as smart as they are capable of being.
With these “super babies”, the children that are conceived naturally won’t be able to compete. This will affect society by dividing poor from wealthy since designing your baby is quite costly. It’s not fair that children may or may not be born with advantages that they’re not in control of and could potentially be used against them when they are older.
Here are some of the cons associated with the genetic engineering of babies:
- Furthermore, the technology used is not 100% safe yet. It is only in the experimental stages at this point.
- Parents may use this technology for superficial purposes; such as purposely seeking out a blonde haired, blue eyed baby for appearance concerns only.
- Could create a gap in society. “Designer” babies would most likely be better looking, smarter, etc. This could create “classes” between designer and nondesigner babies.
- A baby cannot consent to have its body altered; therefore some do not believe it’s right as parents do not “own” their children.
- Genes often have more than one use. For example, a gene that controls intelligence could also control anger management. You could end up with a genius, but very angry, child.
- Individuality will be slighted. Because most people will seek out good-looking, intelligent babies with other optimum characteristics, everyone will be relatively similar.
- The procedure is not cheap, and not everyone would be able to afford it. Could create prejudice between “Designer” and “nondesigner” children. Could cause the “non-designer” children to miss opportunities because jobs among other things are more likely to take the “optimum” candidate for something.
- The ability to “change” as humans will falter.
The process of creating a “designer baby” is often questioned because of its shaky moral platform. Though there are certainly some positive things that can be obtained from the use of genetic engineering used on unborn babies, but it is often wondered if parents will have the “right” reasons to genetically modify their baby, or if reasoning will become more superficial.
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