Beautiful Babies, Are They Really Worth It?

Topic: “Designer babies” is the term being used by the media to describe the future of modifying or selecting our children’s genes for desirable characters (medical and cosmetic). Are things getting out of hang with our research into genetic processes? In this blog, investigate social and ethical implications of this research and technologies that have been developed from it.

All my life I wondered who I am.
All my life I questioned who my parents are.
I never understood why I looked so different from my parents.
I hate to admit it, but I look beautiful.
Who am I?
If I was truly born from my mother Why do I look nothing like her?
Nor do I look like my father.
I wished for an explanation, until I began to find out about ‘designer babies’
After that discovery, I cut connection with my parents.


In this era, the world revolves around media. Media affects everyone in our society, and it causes us to do things, and to think in ways that is not appropriate. The media is the main reason for many people’s pains and sufferings, yet we are still so involved with its activities. Every man and woman in this world is pressured to look a certain way, and to act a certain way. This pressure causes people to become self conscious, and consistently worry about their outer appearances. There are many people who would stop at nothing to please the media, to fit in and to look like how the media portrays a beautiful person to look. These actions may begin as little changes to your outer appearance such as make up, but end up impossibly wrong, for example plastic surgery. This is not the worse part of it. We can all agree that humans are naturally curious, and usually curiosity may lead to bad things. Scientists strongly enjoy playing around with the human body by observing, learning, experimenting and thinking of new ideas to make this world a ‘better’ place for all. The most shocking discovery is a new concept known as designer babies. After my understanding of what a designer baby is, I was gravely disappointed. Just hearing the idea of a designer baby possibly being global and permitted in our society is devastating. I will not disagree to the fact that having beautiful and healthy children is a benefit and something I’d desire, but I would not want to obtain these benefits through genetic engineering. If a child’s fate is to grow and be a certain way, we should not alter his/her genes for our own benefit.

Who Am I?

It all began with two people, James Watson and Francis Crick, who are widely known for their research on the genetic structure of humans. On April 1953, the world was presented with the structure of the DNA-helix, a molecule that carries genetic information from one generation to the other. This was a possible break through to many of the unsolved questions of gene, traits and hereditary. Through this research others began to work on solving other problems. In 1990 the ‘Human Genome Project’ was launched. This project is an international research and technology-development effort aimed at mapping and sequencing the entire genome of human beings. This research is the core to developing possible medicines and other aspects of health care. This amazing scientific discovery was taken advantage of, and is now a new concept known as ‘designer babies’ is being experimented with.

What Am I?

A Designer Baby; is a baby whose genetic information was artificially selected by genetic engineering combined with vitro fertilization. By doing this, we are able to choose the presence or absence of particular genes and character traits. Many people do not approve of this newly found discovery, while others whose minds are controlled by the media would want this for their children. The media views this as positive factor, the ability to modify and change our unborn babies’ characteristics and genes into ones that we desire such as certain physical features or health benefits is something to look forward to.

Who Are My Real Parents?

If I were a parent, I would definitely look forward to having beautiful babies, but in my mind, I know that in some way this wrong. I will never understand what on earth encouraged scientists to work on this kind of experiment and why would they want this in our society. Perhaps they simply did not look at the big picture, and imagine how the world would take this discovery. Perhaps they did not think about the negative factors of this process of genetic engineering but only the positive gains. It could be possible that they do not care about what happens to our society. Scientists are like any other average person, other than their high intellect. By being any average person in society they can be swayed with money. Money must be the only solution to our questions. The people in the world are so caught up with media that they would spend thousands to millions of dollars to appease themselves. Each designer baby costs approximately $18,000.00 US per baby. That’s a whole lot of cash, meaning that only people who are loaded are able to purchase a designer baby. With all the media crazed people on this globe, imagine how much money scientists’ must be making. Yet again, money seems to be the big problem and contributor in our society, this is the social implication of designer babies. By having the ability to choose the sex of our children is an extreme violation of ethics. If parents were given the ability to choose the gender of a child, then I would not have been born. In many countries, men are the preferred gender of birth, as it is an Asian tradition because the male always carries the family name. Designer babies have no ethical purposes, and will not help our society.

Why Do They Refer To Me As Their Purchase?

In the 1990’s PGD, also known as ‘Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis’ was created. This process of trait selection was made to help the parents whose genes carried life threatening diseases create healthy babies. For this process to be possible the ‘Pre-implantation Genetic Screening’ is tested on you. Advanced reproductive techniques such as ‘InVitro Fertilization’ or IVF are accomplished by fertilizing eggs with sperm in test tubes outside of the mother’s body in a laboratory. With the new and advanced technologies of P.G.S. parents will have the ability to choose what genetics and characteristics that they want their children to have such as hair colour, eye colour, sex, skin colour, height, weight, etc. This discovery may be used to benefit the world, other than its cosmetic benefits; a child that was genetically engineered may have control with obesity levels, control of deathly diseases, and the control of hereditary disorders. Thus a genetically engineered baby is born. This is where the name ‘designer babies’ is derived from, because we choose the traits, we pretty much choose everything about this child, so it is designed by us, and what we want.

Am I Not A Normal Child?

The research put on these experiments are not a waste of time, because we are learning more and more about the human body, and genetic system, but the experiments that we fool with is not just. There should be no reason as to why scientists consistently put all their effort into altering genetic possibilities when there are obviously many other problems that needs to be solved in our society. Every movie that I have watched that composes of the genetic alteration of humans and animals leads to a detrimental problem. Discovering new possibilities and researching is a different thing compared to trifling with the natural way of life. Designer Babies should not be globally permitted, nor should it be further tampered with. The society should learn to respect the value of life, and STOP designer babies.

Why Am I A Designer Baby?

Take a look at this Video:



Sources:
http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/agar.html

http://www.healthnews.com/family-health/pregnancy-childbirth-parenting/forget-designer-baby-bags-now-there-s-designer-babies-2740.html

http://www.humansfuture.org/genetic_engineering_designer_babies.php.htm

http://www.bionetonline.org/english/content/db_cont1.htm

http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/medicine/dna_double_helix/readmore.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designer_Babies