What do you think about Designer Babies?

[Rune hunter]

http://health.msn.com/pregnancykids/pregnancy/articlepage.aspx?cp-docum entid=100157198

Well i was reading that article and it seems interesting. Basically according to the article we might be able to dictate many feature about our kids. Like height, intelligence, memory and a host of other things. Some parents may even prevent certain disabilities long before the babies are ven born.

It seems very promising at the very least. What do you think?

[LordKratos]

I say if its helping out the world and its not hurting whats the problem with genetic engineering it has endless possibilities you can keep people from getting sick and prevent physical disabilities before a child is even born... I don't know about you guys but that sounds pretty good to me.
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IN AMERICA!

[Phamex]

It sounds good if you have the money to invest in it. That's what the article goes on to say. The wealthy might take this up as the norm and start breeding "superior" human beings. I find the whole concept frightening. It's one thing if we make embryo screening mandatory for everyone, allowing us to eventually weed out diseases, but I strongly suggest that we stop there. Otherwise, our grandkids' grandkids are going to have one hell of a situation on their hands.
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[Sniper_Zegai]

Yeah I agree with Phamex here its one thing to help get rid of illness and disabilities before birth but when people get to pick and choose what there children look like, it will result in some sort of horrible uber human race and I done agree with that at all.
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[retrospect.]

see; Gattaca. A future where only people like Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman can go into space really improves the chance that humanity will go down in galactic history as really attractive people once the aliens find us and take us away.
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[Luceit]

I oppose it.

These designer babies are made to sastify the parent's desires for perfection and not so that their children can live healthy lives. It is just another sign of the rat race parents live now, rearing up their children to be society's darlings rather than individuals in their own right.
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[AA]

I always wonder what would happen if the baby didn't turn out exactly as planned, would they still love it or would they take it back to the lab and try to part exchange it for another one.

Also since they paid for it and it was made for them does that make it a consumer good? If it does then will the company be issuing warranty's and guarantees to go with them?

i think this is a legal mine field.

As for making babies exactly how the parents want them to be is kinda wrong, but each to their own, i just hope there are controls so it doesn't get abused as the newest form of human eugenics.

[Luceit]

There was one an article about it in Reader's Digest. A woman had gotten a man who had dark hair to donate his sperm, but one of her children had red hair and she subsequently sued.
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[Angelus]

Where is the surprise in that? :(

I don't like this. I mean, if the baby didn't turn our as expected, does this mean they wouldn't love it as much as if it turned out exactly as they wanted? And it kinda seems like the babies are being treated more as objects than humasns("Design your baby"? o_O).

I also forsee legal problems, and maybe religious too.
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[Urn]

I personally have no stance on this. If people want to pay money to manipulate the genetics and create a custom made baby, then it is their bodies and their babies. We could argue a stance as to whether it is ethical or moral in regards to the effects it may have on the fetus or various side-effects that may exist, but the fact is that in the age of cosmetic surgery and our emphasis on beauty, that it may be in the best interest of the unborn child to get any advantage the parent is willing to give to them.

There may be religious problems, but as far as legal issues go, I cannot see how there would be any. The mother and father have the right to do what they please with their fetus according to law. The only problematic point will exist in whether states recognize the right of medical facilities to conduct such treatments.
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~ Humbly walk the path of death

KOOLUK SUPPORTS TINTO MINERS

[kuwaizair]

like others said, its not like everyone could afford this. Think of a world where now, its 'designed' verses the 'naturals', there will always be problems with groups of people, now the imballance will focus on the college educated and those who don't. Wich sooner will be a big problem and intertwine with the "poor and rich"

imagen the world with the perfect desinged children, they are beautfull, intellegent, healthy, athletic. Perfect. Parents can have what they want. What if this costs a lot of money? now the poorer children will be distanced from this new breed, degreeded, less. Would socioty faver these new people? Is if fair? Of course to those who'll use it, who woudln't? I mean it must be horrble for a parent dreaming of a beautyfull baby boy, who'll be a star football player or a doctor or musican one day but insted get a black haired girl with a horrble disorder or deformity right? that isn't fair now is it?
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few runes short of a set of 27

[Rune hunter]

Well, i'm still fairly torn about wether or not i should support something like this or not. On the one hand it might lead to a healthier society. On the other hand it might lead to a new eugenics race. There are other things to consider. Like what if some minority wanted to give there kids a kind of disability. Like what if someone who's blind or has dwarfism want his/her kid to have that trait?

Another problem i see with this is were would designing our kids end? I mean if people were to continually mess with there kids and there kids' kids DNA in a few generations there might be significant genetic differences between a "normal"(i use the term losely) human and someone who has been genetically enhanced. Guess we will have to wait and see.

[kuwaizair]

[Sailor Sexy]

Eh, I don't see much problem with it. I view it as the natural outcome of genetic engineering. Once you start messing with genes, of course people are gonna want to use that knowledge for superficial things like kids. Furthermore, because only the really rich could likely afford it, it's not like it's going to be a widespread problem. If you think it should be used to keep naturally occurring diseases from happening in the unborn child, yet think it's wrong to tamper with things like appearance, then that's quite the double standard. Either way it's still interfering with the natural order of things. The diseases are there to limit our population after all.

But, all this started when they began making test tube babies. If you can't have kids the natural way, then you just weren't meant to.

Ah well, I honestly don't care I guess. I'm a capitalist. If you are able to pay for it, and it's legal, then you should be able to buy it. Moral, immoral, no one should care but you yourself.
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~Uguu!~

[Amyral]

I think we won't see anything like this turn into an actual baby-to-order thing for quite a while until after it begins. I'm basing this on how long it took before we saw such a rise in the use of cosmetic surgery versus real surgery. While society is advancing in technology at a much more rapid pace, things to tend to slow down quite a bit when you get into social and moral dilemmas. So I think we'll see a lot of trying to cure diseases before we get into trying to determine how tall a child is going to be (although, from what little I understand of genetics, it seems like that wouldnt' be a very exact science).

As for the rich creating super-babies that will further increase the gap between rich and poor, it's an interesting idea, but again, I don't know enough about genetics to know exactly how accurate any of that would be.