Designer baby

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The colloquial term "designer baby" has been used in popular scientific and bioethics literature to specify a child whose hereditary makeup (genotype) would be, using various reproductive and genetic technologies, purposefully selected ("designed") to be the optimal recombination of their parents' genetic material. The term is usually used pejoratively to signal opposition to such use of human biotechnologies.

1 Technology
2 Ethics
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Technology

Genetic engineering or modification means changing the genes in a living cell. There are two types of genetic modification: Somatic alteration (non-heritable modification of non-reproductive cells) and germline alteration (inheritable modification which includes reproductive cells). Non-inheritable genetic modification changes the genes in cells other than egg or sperm cells. Diseases caused by defective genes could be treated by modifying the genes in affected cells. These changes are not passed to future children. Applications of this sort (such as gene therapy) are being pursued in clinical trials, and are generally considered to be socially acceptable.

However, designer baby technology usually refers to inheritable genetic modification (IGM), which changes genes in eggs, sperm, or very early embryos. These changes not only affect the child immediately born but are passed down to that child's descendants as well, in perpetuity.

[edit] Ethics

A common objection to "designer baby" technology is based on the ethics of human experimentation. Modern bioethical codes such as the Declaration of Helsinki condemn experiments on humans that are unnecessary, dangerous, or without the subjects’ consent. A report by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) voices these concerns in the context of inheritable genetic modification, concluding that this technology "cannot presently be carried out safely and responsibly on human beings" and that "pressing moral concerns" have not yet been addressed. ^[1]

Most opponents of this technology refer to its possible social implications, distinguishing between genetic modifications used to treat persons with disabilities or diseases and those used to "enhance" healthy persons. They are particularly wary of this technology’s ability to lead to a new eugenics where individuals are "bred" or designed to suit social preferences such as above average height, certain hair colour, increased intelligence, or greater memory. While the prospect of future generations of overall 'better' people is not necessarily negative within itself, concern rather arises from the possibility that such groups of people might become prejudiced against one another due to a feeling of lost common humanity with non-enhanced or differently-enhanced groups. Within journalistic coverage of the issue, as well as within the bioconservative community (those against), the issue of safety takes a secondary role to that of humanity, because it is thought that the ethical issue of safety can eventually be resolved by science and so should not be focused on due to its fallibility. The humanity argument asserts that genetic engineering 'designer babies' would compel us to think of each other as products or devices rather than people, and the spectre has often been raised (for instance by CGS) of young parents-to-be who might one day send away for a catalogue, compose a list of desirable features and order a custom infant produced to specification.

Despite the pejorative nature of the term "designer baby," a growing minority of social theorists (most notably transhumanist thinkers) consider the notion of a designer baby, once the technology is shown to be safe, to be a responsible and justifiable application of parental reproductive rights. The usage of genetic engineering (amongst other techniques) on one's children is said to be defensible as procreative beneficence, the moral obligation by parents to try and give their children the healthiest, happiest lives possible. Some futurists claim that it would put the human species on a path to participant evolution.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

^ Mark S. Frankel & Audrey R. Chapman, Human Inheritable Genetic Modifications: Assessing Scientific, Ethical, Religious, and Policy Issues, (September 2000), available at http://www.aaas.org/spp/sfrl/projects/germline/report.pdf