Women seeking sperm donations now have the ability to choose the perfect “dad”.
The London Sperm Bank just released an app which allows women to choose their donor based on ethnicity, occupation, personality, eye color, staff impressions, etc. All donor results still remain anonymous. The women are even given the option to create a wish list of desired traits. This allows women who know what they want to be notified if a surrogate father matches the traits that they want. The app even allows the user to order and pay for the donation from the app.
Creating the perfect child. Picture Courtesy: CNN
The London Sperm Bank has over 25,000 vials of sperm available at any given time so women shouldn’t have a problem trying to find “the perfect match.” Each treatment is ~$1200 and costs the same as if you were to order through their catalog.
This app is interesting because it could change the way that people could make babies. Women can now choose only “desirable” traits for their children without any of the hassle involved. They can simply filter out traits that they do not want and create “the perfect baby”.
App logo. Picture Courtesy play.google.com
The are some eugenics issues involved with picking out traits for your baby however. Creating a baby based upon traits you desire seems to be something straight out of the movie Gattaca. Furthermore, decreasing the genetic diversity pool may leave some unintended health side effects to the general populations. Another concern that critics have for this app is the objectification of men. The mens’ sperm is chosen solely by their appearance, occupation, etc.
Reproduction via a mobile app could be something that will shake up how babies are being born in the future. Swiping right for the perfect father could be something that we see in the future. Who knows, maybe we’ll see an entire generation of children who all look like Scarlet Johansson or Ryan Reynolds.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/28/technology/london-sperm-bank-donor-app/
As a minor user of Tinder, this really grabbed my attention. When looking at the concept of the idea, I think it is awesome. Career oriented women not only become more empowered but it also gives them the ability to have a child with the best qualities of human life. The downside to this app in my opinion is that it is very qualitative and shallow because it only adds pressure to conform to society’s beliefs. On the other hand, not every couple or woman will be using this app or going to sperm banks. Something that not a lot of people touched up on is the app itself. Although I haven’t dowloaded it, it seems very user-friendly and the user interface allows the user to easily choose the traits that they wish to pursue. It even provides all of the health information about the father and all other concerns. This is definitely a swipe in the right direction.
http://bigthink.com/philip-perry/would-you-use-a-tinder-like-app-to-choose-a-sperm-donor
I like the idea of this app but I also see some ethical issues involved. While I agree with the other comments on this post about how picking desired traits for a baby is a really interesting and awesome idea, I can’t help but think about ethical issues. A baby is a beautiful gift and they are given the traits they have for a reason. However, I do agree when you say that this could potentially get rid of some diseases if we are able to look at family histories of disease and choose based on that. This could give an unfair advantage to the babies who have their traits “picked” rather than ones who are born without using a sperm bank. All issues aside, I think sperm banks are wonderful because they provide women who might not be able to have a child on their own/ don’t have a partner to have a child with, a child. This is a cool way for a mother to have the baby she wants while getting a little bit of say in the father’s traits. This would seem like a crazy idea a few decades ago, but at the rate technology is going, this is no surprise to me. This could definitely make the use of sperm banks seem more interesting to a woman looking into options she has in this situation. According to the scientific director of London Sperm Bank, Dr Kamal Ahuja, “…the old model of advertising is unlikely to succeed, but by embracing new technologies we have shown that it can thrive and prosper.” Taking the most natural thing in the world and altering it with technology doesn’t necessarily float my boat, but I am able to recognize the amazing advantages that could come with this.
http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/sperm-donors-theres-an-app-for-that-in-london/12021
The creation of this app I think is beneficial for many women in choosing the donor having all the traits women wish their children may have. This app has proven how technology has helped to improve quality of human life. Every women who intend to use donor sperms since understanding all the parental traits can help to raise kids easier and more effectively. Personally, I can see a huge benefit from the use of this app but any bad issues. There could be an amount of types of guys never getting their sperm selected and used. However, this does not harm any one and I think that amount is not very big. This is because human are varied in interest. All mothers, I believe, are not going to pick sperm from just some specific traits of men. Overall, I think this app, in the future, could become a useful tools in making more women using the sperm donation.
I think that the concept of this is really interesting. It gives women the power to hand-pick any trait they want a baby to have. One side of me wants to think this power would be used for the good of all people. Some diseases could be wiped off the face of the earth if we pick do vigorous testing. But one side of me knows that this could be used for evil. A long list of men would never get chosen because they might not fit some standards of society. I could see a future where only a few types of guys are getting there sperm selected and the rest of guys are never used. This could cause major class problems because if everyone is picking men with ridiculous genetics than those without them could be seen as inferior. But maybe i watch too many sci-fi movies and I’m paranoid. either way this new app could affect the way babies are made forever.