On the news you might have heard about the new technologies that allow parents to choose all the features of their unborn baby. Parents can choose eye color, hair texture, skin color, and other genetic features. People can essentially customize their babies. The public has gone wild, rejected this new technology and declared it as unethical. Society is worried about eugenics and a further separation between the rich and poor. Also perhaps creating “super people” people who are genetically geniuses or perfect athletes. Although the social and ethical issues are non-science related, I don’t think this topic should even be in discussion as a possibility considering there has no been enough testing on the subject. How can people say this is safe when they have not tested what happens to the genetically engineered babies when they grow up and have babies of their own? The article says the babies were born healthy. Ok, that does not mean they won’t grow up to have health problems. Does their engineered DNA preform the same way that natural DNA preforms? Will these babies be able to reproduce and have their own healthy babies, what about their grand children? How can scientist say that this procedure is safe when they simply do not know. The science of genetically engineering DNA is brand new, there simply has not been enough time to research for scientist to know for sure that this procedure is safe. Scientist should not tell people its safe and mislead soon-to-be parents and potentially compromise babies futures. The article says that this has been successfully tested and perfected on monkeys, and the genetically modified monkeys are two generations old. But just because this test works on monkeys does NOT mean the procedure will be successful on humans. Also these babies are being created in labs and are essentially being born for science. These babies will be poked and pricked and will be guinea pigs for science for the rest of their lives. They will constantly be at doctors and labs with people checking every aspect of their health. They are being birthed into this world for the wrong reasons and won’t be able to live normal lives. This science is ethically wrong to test, can socially cause many problems and is not ready for humans and should be stopped immediately.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/opinion/genetically-modified-babies.html?_r=0
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-43767/Worlds-GM-babies-born.html
Regardless of the safety concerns it is unsettling to think that people could one day “create” their children. The idea of genetically engineered children is extremely unnatural. I think that it is hard to believe that someone would want to construct their child; it raises the question, “is the child really yours?” Children reflect their parents, however; if the parent has the ability to pic and choose what traits their child will have, doesn’t that take away from the child being completely natural and yours? I think that genetically engineered babies are similar to shopping for a child, and there for is unethical and should not be allowed. I think that science has the ability to provide us with important information and new practices, but I do not think that this is a necessary thing to implement.
I did read articles about scientists helping parents test if their soon to be child would suffer from life threatening diseases, and I understand that, and I think that is a good thing. Raising a sick child is hard, and parents should be warned. If terminating this child is the right thing to do, I’m not sure thats a moral and ethics decision. If parents ahead of time can prevent this unborn child to be born sick I think thats amazing. The part I do not like, is customizing your child. I do not like the ability that you can choose eye color, hair color. I also don’t like the testing to be done on people who are born into this world for that purpose and have no choice. I helping women get pregnant and choosing the characteristics of your child are very different.
Last year in my bioethics class we covered PGD (preimplantation genetic diagnosis) because people are primarily using it now to see if the child in their womb has something abnormal in their DNA. While this knowledge may allow the family to prepare themselves for the obstacles if their child does have Huntington’s disease, cystic fibrosus, or hemophilia, it also opens the doors to allow parents to consider abortion or discarding the inferior embryo for one with better DNA. There are downsides to the treatment. The argument that it is a slippery slope from correcting diseases to correcting athletic abilities/intelligence/physical features, but it is more important to realize that the mindset of the parents change as well. In the New York Times article, people intentionally seek out children with disabilities to fit into their own families, which shows parents even when screening for diseases or disorders adopt a mentality of ownership of the children as property. It is cases like this that challenge whether PGD crosses moral lines. While it is good to prepare for a child with different DNA than expected, it is not right to base the child around the features instead of the other way around.
http://www.givf.com/geneticservices/whatispgd.shtml#priorpregnancy
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/05/health/05essa.html?_r=0
While I do see your point about the ethics of genetic modification, people have already started to genetically modify successfully. This article from ABC reports that 30 babies were born to mothers with conception problems through genetic modification. If genetic modification can make women mothers who otherwise couldn’t be, I say test on!
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=117472