Should parents be allowed to make "Designer Babies"?
What if your doctor gave you a list of what traits you wanted for your baby? Would you fill it out? This is an important and controversial debate that has been happening since the human genome project in 2003. The human genome project mapped every single gene is the system and what it was for. For example, the gene BRCA tested to determine if breast cancer is present. A gene is a unit of heredity that is transferred from a parent to offspring and is held to determine some characteristic of the offspring. Every gene inside each of our chromosomes was mapped out in order to determine what causes our traits. Should parents be allowed to make "designer babies" by selecting their traits? Some think It's okay as long as the parents give consent to genetically alter their child. Others are 100% against it with or without consent. In my opinion, parents should not be able to make designer babies because generally everyone wants the same type of child. Then there would be no genetic diversity on our planet cause the non-modified people would die out.
Designer babies are artificial and therefore not natural. Saying it's the parent's decision and not the child. In the article by the organization Biotechnology: In context called "Designer Babies" that state "Supporters of designer babies support the widespread use of IVF technology" Scientist who support gene modification support IVF technology. IVF technology is when an egg is extracted and a sperm cell is extracted and put together in a lab then placed inside the woman's uterus. A scientist who supports designer babies are making it look like they support that changing the way you look is okay. They make it look like they don't support doing thing the natural way. This evidence isn't the most important thing to consider when debating on this topic because other reasons I will state are better to understand my position.
Embryos cannot give consent to be genetically modified. When manipulating genes embryos cannot verbally give consent to be changed. In this same article titled "Designer Babies," the author states "As such some critics assert that genetic manipulation and screening are medical producers to which embryos cannot give informed consent." embryos cannot decide whether or not they could be genetically modified by their characteristics. It shows that this would be invading the law that states informed consent is required by the subject. If the parents were to give consent, non-supporters of designer babies would argue that still isn't informed consent because the embryo does not know about being genetically modified. This again is a violation of the informed consent law that has been established. This evidence should be considered because this is, in fact, a violation of the law that was put in place.
Genetically modified babies are a waste of natural eggs. It wastes perfectly okay embryos that are stored in the ovaries. In this very helpful and informative article "Designer babies" by Biotechnology: In context it says "Whereas opponents (not supporters) may object to the destruction of unwanted or unused embryos" Some people who don't support "designer babies" oppose the damage of unused or unwanted embryos or in other words scientists who oppose it or don't agree with it don't like the disuse of normal eggs. They don't like that embryos aren't being used like they are supposed to. It's what our bodies were biologically made to do. It's like trying to fix something that was never broken in the first place. This is important because we are messing with what we were naturally made to do.
Parents shouldn't be allowed to genetically alter their future children because they can't give consent and it's a waste of our natural sex cells we were given. My research will affect the way I think about having future kids If I decide to have kids. A question that is unanswered is How will gene modification affect humankind in the future? Whoever is reading this should care because science is advancing rapidly and also to think about your future kids or present kids and how they would feel about this. I want people to remember that the future is closer than we all think. This science could end up being used even without parents consent who knows. I'm not saying it will but its a possibility. We should spread stuff about or related to this article so we know what to look out for and what questions to ask doctors in the future.
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Thoughts? This is just my opinion you are free to voice your own
