At the year of 2000 the first designed baby

Introduction

At the year of 2000, the first designed baby was born. When the technology of designing babies was introduced, it became a controversial topic between people.

Designer babies are those whose DNA has been altered to bring desired results in gender, appearance, intellectual, health, and more.(The Friendly Brain)

Despite its advantages, critics have stated several risks standing against the notion of designing babies. Both sides ‘for’ and ‘against’ are debated in a range of different issues. Among issues with topics of social, environmental, financial, political, and others, the following essay will consider social issues which generally engages individual and society, mainly relating to health affects in human beings.

Body – ‘pros’

Based on the discovery of designing babies, several advantages were considered. The technology is capable of reducing inherited genetic diseases. (Editor in Chief) The first known designed baby, Adam Nash was created to be a saver for his sister’s illness. His sister had an untreatable disease; Faconi anemia, a rare blood disease.

After several years of research, scientists were able to reproduce 15 embryo where one of them consisted the healthy genome; one without the Faconi anemia – disease which his sister had. The embryo was implanted and was born through the process of IVF(in vitro fertilization), later cured his sister’s disease. This scientific experiment is considered successful, since both children survived in a healthy state. (Molly Hendrickson)

Referring to Adam’s case, scientists have successfully matched an embryo without the disorder his sister had proving that reducing inherited diseases are possible.

This point can be supported by; according to the Nursing Times, The Guardian have reported that scientists from the US have viewed the genetic therapy used in designing babies can prohibit diseases inherited from parents.(Gene editing technique could prevent inherited diseases)

Another advantage of designer babies are; the technology may allow parents to bear children without sexual relationships or other reasons. (Editor in Chief)

According to the ‘SingularityHub’, currently, couples are using IVF for bearing their children. The IVF technology is which fertilization occurs by integrating egg and sperm, creating into an embryo; also used for creating Adam. The source has stated that approximately 65,000 babies were born with the technology of IVF in 2014, US. Parents or couples using this procedures has increased by 50% from 113,000 to 165,000 currently. Furthermore, IVF enabled women struggling with issues to bear babies, whom in the past were unable to due to aging. (Peter H. Diamandis, MD)

Lastly, there are possible chances of retrieving human’s immune systems. In human society, people face disorders such as cancer which are mostly incapable to cure. Besides, treatments for the disease is limited. However, through the process of editing babies’ genes, it could provide a natural healthy body system which may resist several harmful diseases. Stated by the ‘ConnectUS’, cancer therapeutics with gene altering was useful when CRISPR was used to change or destroy damaging cells. (Editor in Chief)

Body – ‘cons’

Despite the appraisals mentioned above, oppositions were made against the idea of designer babies. Firstly, technology used for designing babies is indefinite and may have unknown future consequences. Re-stating,: replaced genes can play a negative role in the future. Referring to a chinese researcher Jainkui He in an article based on this topic from ‘The Conversation’, questions of mistakes and negative consequences were made among scientists. (Why we are not ready for genetically designed babies) Besides, though the result of designer babies until now were mostly successful, proof of which it doesn’t impact future generations hasn’t been shown yet. According to an article written by Emily Mullin from Medium, accidents of editing wrong genes may occur and result the baby in health problems or infection by harmful mutations difficult to eliminate. (Emily Mullin)

Secondly, loss of individuality will happen in human society. Different societies in different countries have a standardized look they offer which a lot of parents would prefer for their children. Due to an opinion stated by author Serm Mermson, he has written humans with similar traits will result with groups of individuals looking alike. (Serm Mermson) Therefore meaning, designed babies would look or act alike if they were engineered by the parents’ means whom preferred the society’s standards.

Thirdly, a huge gap in a society would occur between designed babies and non-designed babies. Or even between more or less designed babies, which may subsequent in division of classes in human society. When the technology of designer babies gets initiated globally, due to its attentive and long-term work it would cost highly – making affordable for wealthy parents who offers to edit their children’s genes to their standardized concept which is highly appraised in their society, or for other problems. Like the 1997 film named Gattaca; about a society divided between the genetically privileged – valid, and those who are non-valid. (Janna Thompson)

Conclusion

After the comparison of two opposite sides on designer babies, I’ve decided to stand against the topic. In consideration of three points as mentioned,; future consequences may have negative effects on babies, diversity of humankind might not vary, and a huge gap in non-designed and designed babies, since these may strongly affect human society causing socialistic issues.