Give me a designer bag, not a designer baby

Every Sunday afternoon my roommate and I go grocery shopping, and we pretty much have it down except for the cereal aisle. As we walk down the fluorescently lit aisle, eyeing the pretty much infinite number of cereal choices, it takes as awhile to choose what type of breakfast we want. At a certain point it’s kind of like, how many different choices do we need? As humans, and particularly Americans, we love having choices and especially being in power of those choices. White or wheat? Paper or plastic? Coffee or tea? No matter how menial it may be, we love having the ability to choose. As technology is advancing, it seems we may be able to control one more aspect of our life: the genetic makeup of our offspring. According to the FDA, genetic engineering is “a process in which recombinant DNA (rDNA) technology is used to introduce desirable traits into organisms”. In other words, you can choose specific genetic traits of certain organisms such as, blue eyes and blonde hair. While this sort of new age technology can have pros when dealing with genetic diseases, there are huge ethical questions to consider. Although having choices when it comes to certain things is nice, having the choice to map out a child’s genes is wrong.

This relatively new process, called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis was originally created to “screen for disease”, however now according to Dr. .Jeffery Steinberg it can be used to determine sex, hair color, eye color, etc. Steinberg is a supporter and leader of this genetic designing, where parents from all over the globe have already come the United States, because practices like this are outlawed in their home countries, to have operations to choose the sex of their baby. This is especially relevant when clients from countries like China and India, where it is considered culturally beneficial to give birth to a boy, come and use these services. Steinberg’s clientele tend to be wealthy elites, for good reason, the procedure can cost up to $45,000. Many people go to his clinic to get their embryos tested for abnormal chromosome conditions; those clients now have the possibility to cosmetically alter their embryos. One example is that a “couple may want to have a baby with a darker completion to help guard against a skin cancer”. Steinberger is a clear proponent of genetic engineering saying, “I would not say this is a dangerous road. It’s an uncharted one”.

The ability to screen for chromosomal abnormalities and prevent disease and later anguish is one thing, but to choose the cosmetic traits of your child is quite another. This sort of genetic predisposition creates a false reality for parents and puts sorts of expectations on their later children. Morally, it seems like choosing your child’s eye color and skin tone is metaling with the universe. According to Dr. Gillian Lockwood, an expert in the field, this is the equivalent of “turning babies intocommodities that you buy off the shelf”. In the UK, and other countries, sex selection is outlawed; however there is no current legislation in the US banning the practice. There is also the question of deciding which traits are considered the “best”. For example, if a couple is to have a fair-skinned, ginger, and green eyed baby, but they really want blonde hair, blue eyes, and bronze skin, is it ethical to change their future baby’s’ complete genetic makeup? Does the emergence of designer baby culture mean the extinction of some less “desirable” traits? Our cosmetic makeup is unique to each and every person, the emergence of this new technology has the ability to create a more uniform more “perfect” population, somewhat eerie of Hitler’s vision of an Aryan race.

This sort of moral catch-22 will certainly lead to ethical debates in the future. As our society becomes more technology savvy, we are only bringing these ethical dilemmas upon ourselves. In this scientific age we live in, our generation will be forced to make decisions that can change the very definition of human existence. As the possibility of robots and super humans becomes more of a reality we are becoming increasingly aware of the fact that a life quite like one in science fiction movies could become real. Call me “old-fashioned” but I think that the diversity and flaws in people are what make them beautiful and real. A world where I can choose the genetic makeup of my son or daughter is too close to the stuff of science fiction novels. Although science is incredibly important, and it’s nice to know that there is that sort of technology available, there are certain lines that shouldn't be crossed.