" Designer Babies" by Patricia Smith- Is Genetically Designing Babies Ethical?

The May 12th edition of Upfront magazine contains an article titled “Designer Babies,” by Patricia Smith. This article outlines the efforts scientists are making to engineer genetically altered babies, and the contemporary ideals and controversy surrounding this topic.  After reading and analyzing this passage, I concluded that genetically designing babies is not a smart idea for many reasons.  This belief, I realized reflects largely on my morals and ethics.

Designing a baby is potentially dangerous to the baby’s health. While many scientists find it exciting to design a child resistant to certain diseases and birth defects, Jeremy Gruber, President of the Council for Responsible Genetics, believes differently: “We need to be extra cautious about any procedure that changes an embryo’s genes...such procedures could cause new and unforeseen genetic abnormalities or accidentally eliminate positive traits.” So by trying to create a perfect baby, you take the risk of permanently damaging the baby’s ability to maintain physical homeostasis. The passage also describes what may happen if we legalize designer babies:  Any mutations, genetic defects, or diseases found in the designed babies can and will be passed down to future generations, creating a dangerous gene pool to reproduce from. You see, by creating one genetically-engineered baby, you are not only affecting one human life, you are possibly threatening the lives of future populations.

To me, “ designing a baby” defeats the purpose of creating an individual.  Many of the pleasures of parenting have to do with watching a child grow, explore the world around them, and eventually develop an identity.  By pre-deciding the genes for a baby, one eliminates some of the qualities that could possibly become essential in a child’s sense of self.  For example, the article states that parents can alter a child’s “...intelligence, height, athletic abilities, musical abilities, and social abilities.” Imagine wondering if the true you is really tall and athletic, or if that is only the genome inserted into you. I would constantly be questioning, second-guessing myself:  was I really smart enough to get an 100 on that test, or is that only due to my scientifically-engineered gene sequence? Not only is choosing a baby’s traits unfair, it also isolates the child from the world around them.  If I were a designer baby I would feel like a project, an inferior being from my normally-produced peers.  While these pre-chosen favorable traits may give a kid a advantage over other children, it may also cause peers to exclude the “laboratory kid” from their play.  Overall, being genetically different has unfavorable effects not only directly on the child, but on how the child perceives the world, and how the world perceives the child.

In conclusion, designing babies in laboratories is not natural, nor does it have many favorable effects on the human race.  At least for now, developing babies with pre-decided genomes is a chancey and risky process that could potentially injure the baby itself, as well as the world around the baby.  Until Designer babies can be guaranteed safe and favorable (which I doubt will ever happen,) I believe the human race should continue to create unique individuals instead of “human” laboratory projects. In summation, in my moral code, designing babies is unethical.