Wow, the mainstream media is finally outing the big secret. That soon we are going to be able to design our own babies. Well at least the richest Americans are. Designing babies is not cheap nor will it get cheaper anytime soon.
So what are my thoughts? I had to take a graduate level class in the ethics of technology. It was to make all of us in technology stop and think about what we’re doing. Often times it’s easy to get caught up in the science to forget about if what we’re doing is right. Truth is we’re more interested in finding out more, the next big discovery. One of the hottest ethical debates, designing babies. Yep, we keep making advances in our abilities to screen embryos for genetic diseases and traits.
Thus currently people with enough money are able to select their children. In most states and with most health insurance policies, infertility treatments are not covered. Currently we are able to do Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis, where you are able to see if any embryos are defective and thus choose not to implant. You can also do sex screening using PIGD, so you can pick your son or daughter.
This is of course costs an extra $5k on top of the regular in vitro fertilization costs. Though I have not personally meet someone who did PIGD, I have listened to a lecture from the CEO of a company who does such screening. And the number of people using such services is quickly escalating.
The feeling is, if they are already doing in vitro, why not go a step further and screen for a healthy child with the sex they want? Another truth is that if you are using donor eggs or sperm you are already paying to select the physical/mental traits you want your future child to have.
So the question was where do we draw the line? Should we keep doing reserach to be able to further test and select our own babies? Do we stop and not allow the research? And if we stop in the US, it doesn’t mean that other countries won’t develop the technology and expertise in the field. And won’t we be at a disadvantage?
What repercussions will it have on society? Most of the people in the class agreed that we have to keep doing research because like stem cell work, science always moves forward. Other countries will move forward even if we choose not to.
But unfortunately in our capitalistic society, where you get what you pay for, only the rich will likely to be able to afford it. It will likely be an expensive procedure out of pocket on top of in vitro, which already is expensive and not guaranteed to work.
So I guess the gap between rich and poor will grow until we are all able to afford it. Then we’ll become like the movie Gattaca. Able to select everything for our children and know everything about ourselves at birth.
6 responses so far ↓
1 Rachel // Sep 24, 2008 at 11:19 am
I believe this is wrong in so many ways- who are we to be able to say who should live and who should die/what type of people live/die. It’s discrimination before you have “met” the person- similar to Hitler- only thinking there is one race who deserves to live.
I think if we continue in this way it will eventually lead to euthanasia of those with disabilities or older people.
But it does show how we are getting to be more selfish all the time and believe that everything, even our children’s abilities/disabilities is a direct reflection on us, and that’s all that concerns us.
How sad.
2 Ray // Sep 24, 2008 at 12:42 pm
If you know that you can prevent your child from getting cancer, will you? If the technology/science permits, I will be more than happy to pay to have my children be free of cancer for life.
If you know that you can give your child a 20/20 vision, will you? My vision is a lot worse than 20/20. I would gladly pay to save my children from having to go through the same thing.
The truth is, we are already wired by nature to do this. Why are we attracted to healthy, attractive, talented people? Because we subconsciously know that our offspring with those people will probably have better genes.
Also, like the author said, this is no different from choosing egg or sperm donors. We are already wired to want to produce offsprings that will do the best in surviving.
What we have now is a way to carry out our genetic imperative… in a more precise way than the genetic lottery that we’ve had to bear with since the beginning of mankind.
Definitely good news in my book. Even if I probably can’t afford it
3 LivingAlmostLarge // Sep 24, 2008 at 1:10 pm
I’m not sure if it’s a good or bad thing. Though we pay for eggs and sperm and yes it favors the rich, who are able to select the traits they want.
That’s the thing about ethics. It’s not black and white, it’s grey.
4 Meg // Sep 24, 2008 at 3:02 pm
It’s one thing to “not allow” this kind of research – i.e. to ban it. I’m against that. In fact in rare cases would I support an outright ban on a certain type of scientific research (anything that involves human experiments might fall in there). If some rich person or a company is really into this and wants to personally fund it because they think it will pay off and/or be good for society, then great. Research away.
But what’s tricky is what types of studies should the government ctively fund/subsidize? I’m against my tax dollars going to pay for this type of research, mainly because it’s not that beneficial to anyone or very cost effective.
Also, the “we might fall behind” argument doesn’t really get to me in this case. If Russia wants to spend billions developing this technology, then the handful of parents who want to pay for it can buy the products/services from them (and/or our scientists can copy their research, which happens quickly no matter who invents what anyway). Who cares? This isn’t a cure for cancer or the invention of the flying car! How exactly is America at a disadvantage if we don’t do this first?
In sum, let’s focus on curing a few more diseases first, mmmkay?
5 LAL // Sep 24, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Science doesn’t work that way. You go down one path and end up finding others. So there is no straight line and no direct line of research. You go where it takes you.
You find something interesting and it happens to lead to a new discovery. Some screening test will be found to work on embryos. Why? Because people are working on something closely related to early life
Idea stop aging. People think it’s stupid, but to fully understand the cycle researchers are learning about aging. So they are learning what processes are important and thus they “stop” processes to see if the cells still age.
It just falls in that guys lap. I think saying focus on diseases is too easy. And it’s not how work is done. This is not business where you say this is the plan let’s execute.
In science you say I’m going to look at this, then get a cool data point and say let’s take it here. And it goes in a new direction completely.
How do you think radiation therapy for cancer was discovered? Curies were doing chemistry and discovered it. They died from their research no less, but it’s not a straight line and discoveries wouldn’t be made if it were.
6 fengshui // Sep 24, 2008 at 10:59 pm
“Yep, we keep making advances in our abilities to screen embryos for genetic diseases and traits.”
I’m going to get slammed for this….. but if there was a way that I could know for certain that my embryo/ early fetus had a fatal or severely debilitating disease, I would want to know. If I could prevent a child being born that would have nothing but suffering from birth to death, I would.
But, I think that we’re starting to go too far in some senses with these “designer babies”….. Bizzarre….
I also believe that euthanasia is ok. Until you’re a healthcare professional watching people suffer on a daily basis, I don’t think that you should judge people who support it. If people do NOT want to live any longer because their pain from cancer is incomprehensible, then they should have the right to die in a safe and painless manner (and not from a self inflicted bullet wound)…..
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