"Designer Babies"

So I'm watching Today, and I'm listening to the most ridiculous s*** ever.

At fertility clinics in LA and New York, a few doctors can already select a child's sex (prefered by the parents) before implanting the zygote. Okay fine, personally, I want all boys. But I'll take my chances with nature.

But now they're starting to prefer traits and fertility doctors can select these traits and implant the "perfect" zygote.

Wtf? I don't care what my baby looks like or what the gender is as long as it's healthy!

Are we really stooping so low as to needing "perfect" looking children???

with an adidas birth mark

Of course this can be good if there is a genetic disorder that runs in the family. If you have a 25-50% chance of havinga child with, lets say sickle cell anemia, they could greatly reduce your chances and give you perfectly healthy child.

I think it's wrong to mess with nature myself. Isn't this what Hitler wanted, was the perfect race?? What is different between that and designer babies?

If I could design my own baby, she would be exactly like Kristy!

You're right, good point plebs!

ya... the idea of messing with genetics gives me an icky feeling... i dont like the idea of messing with nature in that sense... even for medical disorders... we are going to kill ourselves out if we get much better at preserving lives... at its just shallow to defy nature so that youre child is 'prettier'...

i know that man is the dominant species and all, but we dont need to control everything in our lives... imo...

Unbelievable

It's called "Eugenics".

I don't see anything inherently wrong with designing humans. The general objection to it is that it would only be available to the super-rich, and the divide between classes would be deepened as the rich also become healthier, more attractive and more qualified.

However, there is a flaw in this argument: genetic traits are not very important at all in determining success in human society, where social skills, education and experience are far more influential. If someone's genes were the primary determinant in their success, human society would already have stratified into the dominant, 'perfect' humanoids and the subservient genetic outcasts.

If someone wants to make a business out of this, whatever. It's a free market capitalism. Their customers, however, may become disappointed when their seemingly perfect children turn out to fall far short of 'superhuman', and require the usual education and socialisation that everyone else does. Then, perhaps, people may see the pointlessness of designer babies, and they will fall out of popularity.

how can they pick out traits?

I have the constantly confused (trait) f*** it!

This is the most immoral thing and I have heard such a thing before. This is definitely playing God and I think people who do this sort of thing are behaving immorally.

Even for diseases I understand how much it would help, but if we are altering everything about nature then what kind of a society are we going to become????

Idk. It deals with chromosomes (and DNA; which make up chromosomes) Some how they can filter out the unwanted genes from the gametes (a.k.a sex cells). Traits come from the chromosomes you receive.

But please, do not take my word on this, this is my educated guess from what I've read in Genetic and Biology books.

O kristy you so smart!

i was talking about this to my boyfriend... he started telling me about this movie set way in the future... people then can only qualify for jobs based on their genetics... in the movie this crippled guy who was 'designed' got a job that he couldnt even do over a guy who was really skilled, but wasnt genetically engineered and didnt have the proper genes...

its sounds like a far-fetched movie, but it brings up an interesting point about how the value we place on genetics could become warped if we start designing people ourselves...