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Raising Awareness of Ethical Dilemmas Behind Designer Babies
What are designer babies?
Most everyone knows the process of buying a car. You go to a dealership, test drive a few different models, and once you find the perfect one for you, you start working out the details. You talk about color, special add-ons, payments, etc. What if I told you this process could also be applied to babies!
A designer baby is a baby genetically engineered in vitro (IVF) for specially selected traits, which can vary from lowered disease-risk to gender selection. (1) Designer babies represent an area within embryology that has not yet become a practical reality, but nonetheless draws out ethical concerns about whether or not it will become necessary to implement limitations regarding designer babies in the near future. (1)
Technology
Advancements in technology, especially IVF, have allowed scientists to make designer babies an upcoming reality. However, is this new technology safe? The only way to fully understand this topic is through scientific testing. Unknown outcomes, including death or horrible mutation, will inevitably be a result.
Social Gap
Creating babies with desired traits such as being athletic, smart, beautiful, may cause larger gap already set in society. Will genetic enhancement bring this social arrangement to an end, creating societies in which unenhanced people are viewed by their genetic superiors in much the same way that we currently view chimpanzees, suitable for drug testing and zoo exhibits but little else?
Cost
IVF costs around $15,000 a try, and is not guaranteed to work on the first try. (3) With picking and choosing traits to be added, cost levels can range anywhere between $50,000-$100,000. (3) With the production of these babies being so expensive, only the rich would be able to afford it. This, in turn, would create an even larger social gap.
But Is It All Bad?
Of course not! Designing babies has the potential to eradicate diseases from the very beginning, Healthier babies leads to a better society as a whole. Ultimately, designer babies represent great potential in the field of medicine and scientific research, but there remain many ethical questions that need to be addressed. (1) Proposing certain limitations in regards to trait enhancement may be all this scientific break through needs,