Ethical Dilemmas of Designer Babies: Challenging the Right to Choose

Categories: Parenting

I disagree with the following statement: "Parents should have the right to select specific characteristics in their children"."

I strongly disagree with the above statement as when you choose to become a parent you should be ready to love a child unconditionally. You should not get the right to pick specific characteristics in your children, God created us all to be special in our own way and how he wants us to be. He knows what is right for us so why would you want to change what he has created.

He is our lord always and we should not take creation into our own hands.

1 Samuel 16:7 ESV: But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart"."

You should not just love your children for what they look like or what they can do.

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As parents you should always be telling your children to never change their selves for anyone as they are special in their own way. By changing yourself you are saying you are not happy with the lord's choices for us. When you change certain aspects, you are saying you think your personal choices are more important than our lords' choices.

In my opinion, you should not have the right to pick specific characteristics for your children but just say you have the choice to pick specific characteristics, the question is, would you? Personally, I would not as you should love your children for who they are not for what they look like.

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As parents you want to give your children the best life but using technology it not the best way to do that.

I think Biblical perspective does guide our view on designer babies. But it should not matter if you have a biblical background. Even if I did not have a biblical background I would still disagree with this statement.

The decision makers in this process are the parents and the doctor's but mostly the parents make the choice. The parents may feel pressured by the doctor's especially as the doctors get paid a lot of money to make designer babies.

The parties who are affected are the designer babies, their parents, other children in their family, extended family and the doctors and the community but they are affected much less.

Reporter Brandon Keim (published 03/09/09, p 1) reports about a Los Angeles fertility clinic that was offering parents to make the choice about their children's hair and eye colour. This was met with public outrage. On March 2 the clinic shut the program down.

Hughes states that when using reproductive technologies if nobody gets hurt and everybody has access, then genetic modification is perfectly fine, and restricting is an assault on reproductive freedom. He describes using reproductive facilities being similar to abortion. He describes that women should have control over their bodies and that there shouldn't be laws restricting choices expect when there is evidence of risk to the child.

According to Professor of Molecular biology Marlin Crossley who looks at the limits of genome editing technology. On page 1 it reported that two genetically modified babies had already been born in China, but he didn't believe that we'd be seeing designer babies soon.

The laws and scientific norms are not preventing genome editing technology from advancing but this has limits that relate to the intrinsic complexity of the human genome. The costs and risks outweigh the benefits at this time.

Genetically modified plants have been shown to be able to produce a lot more food for humans to consume but it is still not known the effects on humans and environments of genetically changing how they are supposed to grow.

Scientists worked on creating genetically modified mice in the 1980's and animals have been cloned since the 1990's. The CRISPR babies have not been confirmed by any peer-reviewed publications. Before these reports there had been no credible attempts to genetically modify viable human embryos.

Unwanted side affects of designer babies can only be speculated on at this time, but these can be varied from if the baby doesn't look like the parents wanted, not the gender they chose, not as smart or talented are they not going to want it?

When thinking about this topic there are serious ethical issues with designer babies. As humans we need to remember that the lord created each of us to be perfect before we grow in our mothers' wombs. Each of us have our own individual traits. By introducing genetic modification, we are messing with what we are supposed to be. I am concerned we could create a culture of humans creating the so called "perfect child", made with perfect preconceived ideas of what beauty is, wanting them to be highly intelligent, clever at sports etc. The parents might view "ugliness" as a disability which is terribly sad as everyone is beautiful in their own way. Parents could begin only choosing children of certain genders as it suits their idea of what they want for their family. Parents may also try to stop certain medical conditions from being inherited through generations.

After learning about different opinions about designer babies it is clear that it is an area that is likely to cause a lot of ethical problems. With a biblical prospective we can understand that our lord made us to be a certain way and we shouldn't be taking choices into our own hands. If we do start making designer babies it is like we believe our thoughts about what is perfection is better than the lords. I completely disagree with allowing designer babies to be made.

APA Reference list:

    NEWS. Janna Thompson. Updated 20 Feb 2019. Gene-edited babies are here, but we need to talk about the unwanted side-effects. Retrieved 20/09/2019. From New York Times.
    Pam Belluck. 4 Aug 2017. Gene Editing for Designer Babies? Highly Unlikely, Scientists Say. Retrieved 20/09/2019.
    Samuel 16:7 ESV: But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.
    News GP. Merlin Crossley.14 Dec 2018. Designer babies won't be common anytime soon: Expert. Retrieved 20/09/2019.
    & Francis Online. Andrew Chesson & Karen Aulrich. 25 Jan 2007.Animal nutrition with feeds from genetically modified plants. Retrieved 20/09/2019.
    Brandon Keim. 03/09/09. Designer Babies: A Right to Choose?. Retrieved 20/09/2019.
Updated: Nov 30, 2023

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Ethical Dilemmas of Designer Babies: Challenging the Right to Choose. (2019, Nov 26). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/view-designer-babies-essay

Ethical Dilemmas of Designer Babies: Challenging the Right to Choose essay
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