Designer Babies; Are they ethical or selfish?

Why do humans desire to be perfect? I believe that there are three main reasons for this. These reasons branch from three stages present in our everyday lives; wanting acceptance, wanting what we don't have, and wanting to correct our mistakes. First we have an overwhleming desire to fit in and be the same as the people around us so as to be part of the majority of the people around us, because nobody likes to be left out. Then there is the overwhelming desire to be better than the people around us which comes from our envy of others and wanting to compete for everything and even have the same things as others. Finally once we have achieved these two things we look towards the next step of perfection. This is the perfection of likely the last stage in life for most people, the development of our children.




With the advancement of technology in the last decade or so, scientists have been able to actually manipulate our offspring by genetically altering genes to create a certain desired quality that would normally be impossible for some couples to produce. The scientists insert genes from a healthy donor into the embryos of fetuses to cure diseases that are passed down through the generations. Health concerns such as diabetes and high blood pressure are very common in the U.S. and they can surely benefit from this new process. But some people have decided that they would like to choose what physical appearances their child will possess when they grow up. These are what the media likes to call "Designer Babies"The question is whether it is ethical or not and more importantly what will happen if the governments allow this to be accepted into our communities.




The United Kingdom does not accept this procedure because they believe it is unethical and that we should use the process to cure diseases carried on through families instead of improving our DNA. I agree with their decision. We can't live a lie by improving ourselves in an unnatural way. We should be proud to be alive and able to walk and see. Instead we think of ourselves as if it is a competition to see who can have the best looking or smartest children. Of course it would be nice to be naturally smarter or good looking. But that's the problem. It has to be natural. If it's not it's like living a lie.

We've accepted being human and having flaws, the very essence of being human, but is it right to choose the traits of our babies? Is it ideal? If we think of how we've been and what the events of real life suggests, then what is the need for designer babies other than to decrease health concerns at birth? Scientists have discovered processes to genetically alter the fetuses or our babies. They have paved a new way for the enhancement of mankind's abilities. They are playing God. They are being superficial and using their power for the wrong purpose. The only thing we should, and that's if we even ethically should improve on, are health risks and diseases that run throughout generations of families like high blood pressure or diabetes.


I personally believe that it is unacceptable to create "false" human beings. They are still humans and they still live and breathe like us and with us but they are made in our image. We changed the way God meant for them to turn out. I don't find that right. Everything has it's place. If people start to want only boys or only girls for children then it would become dramatically unballanced. The natural way would have saved us from global warming if we'd still been walking today but I digress.



Some countries have already over populated and are being limited to having only one child per family or even killing children based on gender. This happens with a new technology called the sonogram machine that can determine a childs gender even before birth. The British medical journal Lancet estimated that the difference between male and female population would be at 43 million with 100 million girls unaccounted for who were supposed be alive but were not. A huge amount of them would be Chinese and following close behind them would be Indian. If these cultures continue to produce males to such an alarming extent then what does that mean for the future of their race? Having no girls to mate with would mean fights over girls and it would be dramatically unbalanced. The reason for this problem is most likely the immense preference of male children, the sonogram machine being used to limit gender to strictly males, and low or quickly declining fertility levels in those countries.

Things like these lead to genetic mutations and a wide range of possibility for new diseases to form if anything happens incorrectly. We are not ready for that kind of phenomenon to occur. Being ready for disease isn't something we should be need to prepare for. Life is a gift. Maybe some people hope or desire or sort of fantasize about certain physical traits, but once that baby pops out, I don't think a lot of parents would really care anymore. They would just love them for the way they are...

Sources:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/1312708.stm

The War Against Baby Girls
http://www.frcblog.com/2007/04/the-global-war-against-baby-girls/

Time Magazine

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989987-1,00.html