With all the advances in understanding the human genome and manipulating DNA an important question has risen: Can people design babies with no genetic flaws, any eye or hair color or even different appearance. Is it just a matter of time before parents can pay for their child to be born a great musician or a scientist? The idea of having a perfect child might indeed sound appealing to future parents at first, but its consequences on society are unpredictable to say the least. Will people have to save money their whole life in order to afford the “latest gene mutation” that will make their child smarter than the “older models” or will this be widely available to every parent, who will just have to browse through available profiles and pick the one he likes best? Whatever the answer is, it will shake the foundations of our current moral system and establish a society based on how “good your genes are”.
This is why germline gene experimentation is at this time strictly monitored and regulated. Although limited number of experiments are being done on modifying embryos’ genetic material, such specimens have to be destroyed within a couple of weeks after their creation. Why are then so many news articles claiming that “designer babies” are being born? This misconception comes from the fact that even though parents can chose the sex of their child as well as eye and hair color using IVF, no genetic modifications are actually being made to the future child’s DNA. Doctors are simply scanning the DNA of numerous possible samples and they choose the one with the preferred characteristics. In this way even certain genes that cause terminal diseases can be “filtered out” by choosing the “right baby”, which has become a common practice for IVF procedures. How different is that from actually modifying your child’s DNA? People are merely choosing a child from all the possible ones they can have, instead of introducing new mutations. The difference is indeed significant, but it seems a small step between choosing to creating. One can only speculate on how long it will be before this happens but it seems that this life changing event might not be so far away.
Sources:
http://www.scienceprogress.org/2008/05/designer-babies/
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,478406,00.html
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3 comments:
Peter,
I was very intrigued by your pointing out of the distinction between filtering embryos and making genetic modifications. You say that the line is subtle, but I actually feel that there would be an incredible hurdle for designer babies to become mainstream, both with respect to societal acceptance and scientific progress.
From reading the article about the scientists at Cornell, I get the feeling that the science is still a long way off from creating viable babies (the experiment was somewhat a failure anyway). The science between filtering and creating designer babies is fundamentally different; in one, you do genetic tests, which is readily available presently. In the other, you must alter a genome and ensure that the product will survive. At this point, the latter is still out of our league, and will be for some time.
Morally I find the two techniques fundamentally different as well. Society would certainly find it more acceptable to choose from something that is already there, versus manually molding something into a desired product. Actively causing deviation from the norm definitely is something that society would have trouble stomaching, so even if the possibility of such a procedure does arrive, it also must get over the fact that it would be heavily regulated and protested at the outset.
Steps must be taken so "making babies" is not exploited in the future, but I feel that such a reality is so distant that the situation is not dire at the moment.
We may be growing more powerful--in fact, we have. From cavemen wielding flint and stone to surgeons handling the ten-blade, our developing intellect has manifested itself into a world that we actively manipulate and transform into what we deem 'better.'
Peter, you brought a really interesting example to light that calls into question the distinction between 'just powerful enough' and 'too powerful.' Jeff's response raised an important practical issue: how 'distant' are we really from this reality? When can regulation be considered 'too soon?'
It seems that we, bystanders of the inner workings of the medical community, have placed too much power into the hands of our resident 'gods.' Have they taken on the role of 'creator' or did we place that label on them? The scientists at Cornell seem to be convinced that their genetically engineered embryo was not viable, with three sets of chromosomes instead of the two, yet the public has already tagged the term 'designer babies' on to their research.
The truth is, we may be jumping to conclusions. We may even be creating the sort of self-fulfilling prophecies that could unravel into exactly what we had feared: by decrying our scientists as 'power-hungry gods,' are we setting them on that exact path?
I usually support scientific progress. However, there are times when I believe that science has inappropriately interfered with a natural process. This is one of those instances.
In vitro fertilization started out with the noblest of intentions: to allow infertile couples to experience the joy of having children—specifically, healthy children. Since the embryos were so easy to analyze prior to implantation, it was perfectly logical that embryos found to have severe genetic deformities should be weeded out, both for the parents’ sake and the child’s sake. I could not agree more that the IVF procedure should entail discarding an embryo that would grow up to have a diminished quality of life due to a genetic disorder. No parent should have to watch their child struggle through a possibly brief life if it can be so easily prevented.
And this, I believe, is where selection of so-called “test-tube babies” should stop. IVF was meant to select against deleterious diseases, not undesirable traits that do not affect the health of the child. Are short stature and Tay-Sachs equally unfavorable conditions? Of course not. The former is a matter of personal preference; the latter is a life-and-death issue. Prospective parents who feel the need to customize their baby as if they are ordering it from a catalogue need to get their priorities in order. If the IVF lab made a mistake, and their daughter is born with brown eyes instead of blue, would they try to return her for a refund? I certainly hope not. Every parent I know would undoubtedly say that they would love their son or daughter no matter what he or she looked like. I do not look forward to living in a society in which this is not the norm.
Beauty is a genetic accident. This is one of the reasons why we appreciate it so much. The stars aligned for Gisele Bündchen: she hit the genetic jackpot, and so she is a supermodel. There is nothing shallow about admiring beauty. Superficiality is characterized by the urge to create beauty according to a narrow set of criteria. The prospect of allowing parents to design their child to conform to their image of attractiveness takes the fortuitousness out of human life and the specialness out of beauty.
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