Designer Babies Research Paper
Designer Babies Bring your partner, grab a seat, pick up your baby catalog and start picking. Will you go for the black hair or brown? Would you prefer tall or short? Comical or intelligent? Boy or Girl? And do you want them to be a muscle-yielding sports aficionado? Or a slender and intelligent book worm? When you 're done selecting, head to the counter and it 's time to start creating your new child. Does this sound like a scary thought? With rapid advances in scientific knowledge of the human genome and our increasing ability to modify and change genes, this scenario of "designing" your baby could well be possible in the near future (Steere, Mike). Parents who have access to the latest genetic testing techniques can now predetermine
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The patent was issued Sept. 24th and covers a technology that would help a prospective parent choose traits in a baby by identifying those traits in the DNA of sperm and egg donors. Then, the prospective parent could build a designer baby through artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization or by hiring a surrogate mother. If you are like me and think that this build-a-baby idea sounds like something out of “Brave New World”, you are not alone. Since the patenting of the issue, a wide range of people have been sounding the ethics alarm over the idea of trying to “order up” a baby according to certain specifications. The Center for Genetics and Society issued a press conference on Oct. 2 calling for 23AndMe to abstain from offering the service and to use its patents to discourage others from doing so. “It amounts to shopping for designer donors in an effort to produce designer babies”, Marcy Darnovsky, the center’s executive director, said in the center’s press release. The 23AndMe company retreated a week after the patent was issued, and posted on its blog saying that the company’s strategic focus has changed since they applied for the patent 5 years ago, and that it does not plan to offer gamete donor selection (Carey, Ann). Pia de Solenni, an ethicist and cultural analyst, said that this build-a-baby mentality is part of what pope francis called a “disposable culture.” When parents do this, they miss the experience of encountering another person as a gift, and they set themselves up for “a world of heartache and disappointment”, for no person lives up to all the expectations of others (Carey,
The patent was issued Sept. 24th and covers a technology that would help a prospective parent choose traits in a baby by identifying those traits in the DNA of sperm and egg donors. Then, the prospective parent could build a designer baby through artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization or by hiring a surrogate mother. If you are like me and think that this build-a-baby idea sounds like something out of “Brave New World”, you are not alone. Since the patenting of the issue, a wide range of people have been sounding the ethics alarm over the idea of trying to “order up” a baby according to certain specifications. The Center for Genetics and Society issued a press conference on Oct. 2 calling for 23AndMe to abstain from offering the service and to use its patents to discourage others from doing so. “It amounts to shopping for designer donors in an effort to produce designer babies”, Marcy Darnovsky, the center’s executive director, said in the center’s press release. The 23AndMe company retreated a week after the patent was issued, and posted on its blog saying that the company’s strategic focus has changed since they applied for the patent 5 years ago, and that it does not plan to offer gamete donor selection (Carey, Ann). Pia de Solenni, an ethicist and cultural analyst, said that this build-a-baby mentality is part of what pope francis called a “disposable culture.” When parents do this, they miss the experience of encountering another person as a gift, and they set themselves up for “a world of heartache and disappointment”, for no person lives up to all the expectations of others (Carey,