Imagine a “perfect child”; intelligent, immune to all diseases, strikingly beautiful, and extremely athletic.  Over the past two decades, technological medical advancements have made creating a perfect child possible.  Parents can use in vitro fertilization (IVF)  to screen the embryos for their sex, and for possible diseases they may develop.  New tests can also detect extra chromosomes present in fetal DNA circulating a woman’s blood streem.  Extra chromosomes cause Down Syndrome.  Parents can now find out and chose what kind of traits their child will have by screening the embryos. This also gives them the opportunity to extract the ones with genes they do not want.  The end result is a “designer baby”.

This is where the controversy begins.  Is it ethical to tamper with embryos to create the “perfect child”? Major medical societies have a wide variety of opinions.  The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) is against testing embryos for sex, because it may lead to sex discrimination against women.  On the other hand, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) usually accepts couples wanting to screen and extract their embryos.  And then the FDA only regulates the safety of the embryo screening, not the ethics behind it.  So in the end, it is really up to the public to decide if these screenings and extractions of unwanted genes are acceptable or not.

A poll was taken on debate.org asking “Should there be designer babies?”.  35% of the surveyors said yes, and 65% said no.  The people who are advocating for the “designer babies” say that we could create a superior race.  They also argue that designing babies’ genetics would potentially save lives. Why wouldn’t we want all babies to be healthy and immune from diseases? Then, people who believe the tests are unethical argue that it is not natural, and it is immoral to meddle with mother nature. They believe that genetic modification is wrong since we chose how we want our children to be, instead of just loving them for how they naturally are. They also argue that human genetic engineering is a relatively new technology which could be unsafe to the infant and the mother.

Research was carried out by Dr Inge Liebaers and some colleagues at the Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel, in Belgium. The study was funded and supported by the WFWG foundation and the Schering-Plough/Merck pharmaceutical company.  This research study was conducted to determine the risk rates of IVF for screening and checking embryos.  Although this study was preformed on a small group, constant results in the study’s control group showed no harm done to the embryo or the mother during IVF.  The end result was only 1.03% of deaths amongst  embryos treated with IVF.  Some other increased effects of IVF were premature births, low birth-weight, and major malformations.  But because these side effects have less than a one percent chance of happening, BBC had reported that these screenings and testings on embryos are safe.

So now I am asking you. Do you think that screening embryos and choosing which genes you want your child to have is ethical and safe?

http://www.livescience.com/44087-designer-babies-ethics.html

http://www.debate.org/opinions/should-there-be-designer-babies

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2009/12December/Pages/embryo-screening-safety-study.aspx