Designer Babies

http://finance.sympatico.msn.ca/savingsdebt/insight/article.aspx?cp-documentid=10626178

it seems that designer babies could be poping up sooner than we think.
soon, "parents will be able to oeder blue-eyed, academically inclined, cancer-free kids."
'One day you'll be able to select for sex, hair color, confidence index, whether they are an optimist or pessimist, whether they are an athlete or a bookworm.'
we'll be able to choose all of these things instead of watching and finding out who our sons and daughters will grow up to be, we'll have it planned out for them. they'll in a way, be like little robots..or more like little adults walking about.
instead of raising your own child, science will have done it for you because parents are too lazy to teach their child good moral values, everyone will be able to pick it out of a book along with eye-colour, hair colour, sex etc.
i dont like this idea. egg and sperm donors are one thing, but designing the 'perfect being' is too much. would they even be classed as a human being? if your able to pick out every trait so it would be perfected, and your able to pick out every personality and what they'll be when they grow up and everything about them is perfect, where does a real human trait fit in? where does a donor trait fit? And when i say
real trait i mean a trait that has not been perfected, a trait they pick up on their own and one that that girl or boy gets with his or her own mind. I dont think there could be one because they've already been..'programmed'.

Should we toy with what is supposed to be a wonderful thing?
Should we really leave it in the hands of science to create and basically raise our children?

When a couple has a child naturally, they never know what their going to get, girl or boy, blue eyes or brown, light or dark hair, extremely intelligent or average, athletic or not. So why should it be different for a couple who gets their baby from a donor?

I agree that the degree to which your post determines the outcome of children is very creepy. However, I think we should be able to route out as many illnesses and disease as possible.

illness and disease can happen even when couples concieve a child naturally though.
they have the option of continuing with the pregnancy or not.
i think with donors its different because they mix the sperm and egg in a petri dish, but if they can take out illness and disease why would they not want to pick out hair eye personality and more too?
because of the fact that you never know what your going to get when concieve a baby naturally i think it should work both ways, naturally or with assistance.

There are many devastating diseases that are passed through genetics. Why not stop all of that pain and suffering for all involved? Many people share your revulsion at the thought of designer babies, but they are also all for stopping inherited genetic diseases. They will most likely choose to get rid of the bad, disease forming genes and leave the rest to nature, just as you would. Why not let people chose for themselves what they want to do?

Besides, you cannot stop the progression of science. These things will become available whether you approve of them or not.

futureshock wrote:

Besides, you cannot stop the progression of science. These things will become available whether you approve of them or not.

MTE
Will technology be abused? Yes.
But that shouldn't stop progress.

obviously science will continue with whatever they invent or discover, there's no doubt about that.
but why not invent a way to take out the genetic disease from the couples trying to have a baby?
would that not be a more logical sollution?
that way, the disease gene is treminated for good, and everything can be left in gods/natures hands -so to speak
when they invent ways to choose how babies look plus take put an illness gene it dangles a piece of meat in someones face i would think if they can take out a disease they would also choose and pick out other things too.

krystineM wrote:

obviously science will continue with whatever they invent or discover, there's no doubt about that.
but why not invent a way to take out the genetic disease from the couples trying to have a baby?
would that not be a more logical sollution?
that way, the disease gene is treminated for good, and everything can be left in gods/natures hands -so to speak
when they invent ways to choose how babies look plus take put an illness gene it dangles a piece of meat in someones face i would think if they can take out a disease they would also choose and pick out other things too.

"but why not invent a way to take out the genetic disease from the couples trying to have a baby?"

I thought that was what we were discussing? The only way to get bad genes out of our gene pool is to stop having children born with these genes. I think your worry about people picking eye color, etc., is a little over blown. Most people just want healthy children and will opt to just take out the disease causing genes.

futureshock wrote:

I think your worry about people picking eye color, etc., is a little over blown. Most people just want healthy children and will opt to just take out the disease causing genes.

MTE
And at the end of the day, science is always trying to get rid of diseases. Should we stop that too?

no we shouldn't.
but instead of coming up with eye colours hair colours our childs personalities etc..just go to the source of the problem or disease,
the parents. instead of choosing what babies look like just terminate the disease.

krystineM wrote:

instead of choosing what babies look like just terminate the disease.

Two different things. Do you have any proof that parent's are going to use this technology to only pick eye color and hair color?

It's extremely expensive to try to do anything like choose the eye color, etc., of a fertilized egg. Again, most people will only try to take out as many diseases as they can, and won't be interested in/won't be able to afford anything else.