A designer baby is basically a child modified to be however the parents want it to be. At the moment, the act of designing babies is mainly used to prevent children from being born with genetic disorders. The technology now allows parents and doctors to view embryos to decide which one should be used for birth.
How do scientist do this?
Scientists use InVitro Fertilisation to fertilize eggs with sperm in test tubes outside the mother's body in a laboratory. This allows doctors and parents to reduce the chance that a child will be born with a genetic disorder. At the moment, it's only legal to use this technique to determine the sex and the genes of the baby and to select embryos for it to be implanted back into the mother's womb so that there is a smaller chance for the child to be born with a genetic disorder..
How do I feel about this?
It's definitely weird. I don't exactly approve of choosing the physical traits of your children as if we were creating a new character in a video game. I haven't found anything that goes into specifics about the method, but just think about this: if you were to change something that was supposed to happen before it came to life, wouldn't that be the same as killing it? Personally, I wouldn't try to change my own child's physical appearance strictly because it's my child. Your child is your creation, and you should be happy with what you have. A child is a blessing, nonetheless.
The thing that scares me the most is a world where everyone is exactly the same. So let's say that this whole designer babies thing goes down. Let's fast forward to year 2100. A couple families are able to pay to have their child genetically altered so they could have the perfect child. This child is athletic, smart, anything you imagine the perfect person to be. This leads to this child living a prosperous life and goes on to have his own genetically altered "perfect" human being. I hope you can see where I'm going with this. I believe it'll lead to everyone being the same. Sooner or alter, everyone is going to be the same human being. What will happen to the world then? Maybe it will benefit the world with billions of genius minds and no evil anywhere. But do you think you would enjoy a life where everyone is the same? All of your friends enjoy the same things, talk the same way, think the same way? If you watched that episode of "Fairly Odd Parents", it's going to be like that episode where everyone becomes a grey blob.
The phrase "everyone is special in their own way" completely dies.
Although, if it were to stay the way it is, I would be fine with it. Right now, I don't think it's a big deal, but I feel that it could get worse. To summarize, at the moment I feel that designer babies aren't a big of a deal, but I believe that the study doesn't need to go any further.
SOURCES:
http://www.bionetonline.org/english/content/db_cont1.htm
http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/agar.html
I commented on:
http://dropsneakersnotbombs.blogspot.com/2010/11/designer-babies-smh.html?showComment=1295497484698#c5919952740677860614
http://pujiadiwibowo.blogspot.com/2010/11/super-babies-wrong-or-right.html?showComment=1295497797673#c3977775435501351861
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