One step closer to perfection indeed....

One California fertility clinic in LA has just taken a huge step closer toward the perfect child. How close does that step put us you ask? …Well, what if I said it puts us just a few months away? Ok, so maybe perfection won’t be achieved quite that soon, but selection most certainly will be arriving. How’s choosing your baby’s gender, hair and eye color, even complexion for a start? That’s exactly what this LA fertility clinic, and it’s sibling NY City clinic, plan on offering coming this fall.
An enhanced PGD (pre-implantation genetic diagnosis), that was originally designed to screen for genetic disorders, will be used to filter for cosmetic characteristics, so that IVF patients will be able to choose the eye color, hair color, and complexion, through the same process and techniques that already allow them to choose their child’s gender. Although, “Not all patients will qualify for these tests and we make NO guarantees as to ‘perfect prediction’ of things such as eye color or hair color,’ said the clinic’s news release.” The clinics director, Dr. Jeffery Steinberg, says they will be able to predict gender with 100% accuracy and eye color with about an 80% accuracy. What will results like that cost their patients? The IFV procedure with this additional selection will run patients around $18,000.
Of course this has almost everyone concerned with bioethics in an uproar. This first step seems to have jumped us off of the theoretically ethical diving board, and plunged us straight into the murky waters of the real life deep-end. Many are outraged that precious resources are being devoted toward improving genetic cosmetics, while research toward therapeutic genetic cures are still in need of funding. Some are pushing the argument that designer babies starts us down a new road of discrimination, be it against gender or skin tone. Arthur Caplan says that, “When you get into trait picking for your child, you put expectations on your child no matter what the trait,” and of course with that sort of price tag it will only be available to the rich. Also, a number of other fertility clinics are taking a firm public stance that they will not move in this direction and they affirm that they will continue to only engage in strictly therapeutic pursuits.
One of the pioneers of PGD technology, Mark Hughes, is certainly unhappy about how his technology is being implemented, “I went into science and medicine to diagnose and treat and hopefully cure disease. The last time I checked, eye color and gender wasn’t a disease. There’s no pathology, no pain or suffering and no reason for doctors to be involved.” Hughes is comforted by his belief that no significant amount of people will sign up for this selection, “I don’t care if you are a billionaire; no one wants to go through the psychological and emotional pain of IVF for something so trivial. We need to have faith in our fellow citizens.”
Whatever conclusion ethicists draw they all almost unanimously agree that we aren’t ready for this step and that we need to immediately start drafting policy and legislation to address the issue, and take steps in the appropriate controlling direction before things get out of hand. But this pressing urgency to take action has been diminished as a direct result of the fertility clinic suspending its proposed project. Apparently the ethical outcry had an effect on Dr. Steinberg who said, “Though well intended, we remain sensitive to public perception and feel that any benefit the diagnostic studies may offer are far outweighed by the apparent negative societal impacts involved.” This turn of events is an affirmation that the consideration and debate of the ethical issues surrounding the advancement of biotechnology is indeed having a positive and shaping influence on its direction.

Sources:
http://www.kansascity.com/637/story/1066120-p2.html
http://blog.bioethics.net/2009/03/art-caplan-video-designer-babies-ethical/
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/triage/2009/03/designed-baby-proposal-nixed-for-now.html