The Abraham Center of Life in San Antonio is fueling a debate on the ethical issues surrounding the “design” of babies for would-be parents seeking a child when unable to do so naturally, according to ABC News. The center allows parents to choose the physical traits and even personality of the donors, which means if a client wants a brown-haired, green-eyed female child, they can receive just that.
While I can understand the plight of a would-be mother wanting a baby of the same race or a baby without genetic diseases, I have a hard time understanding why a would-be mother would want to chose how her child would act and even look physically. It takes away the excitement of what God is going to bless you with; there is no mystery left in childbirth.
Jim Cummins, a molecular biologist at Murdoch University in Western Australia told Washington Monthly his opinion on the topic at hand.
“To deliberately create individuals with multiple mitochondrial genotypes without knowing the consequences is really a step into the dark,” he said.
In essence, he is telling the public these scientists don’t really know what will happen if and when they begin designing babies. There is no way to be completely certain what will happen to the child, what it will look like, or how it will act after conception.
There is no indisputable evidence the genetic alteration of children will not lead to some type of irreversible consequences that could change the gene pool forever.
Over a year ago, the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center announced that it had created the first genetically engineered primate, this following the genetic engineering of a horse, a cat, a llama and many more.
Primates have a much closer genetic relationship to humans than any of the other animals that have been genetically engineered all over the world. This means scientists are dangerously close to practically growing a human being in a Petri dish. While there are laws forbidding this, it is the possibility that is unnerving.
Shannon Brownlee, a writer for Washington Monthly makes light of the situation in her article “Designer Babies,” in which she addresses the ethical concerns many are facing with this issue.
“Today, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn would have been diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder and medicated,” she said. “Tomorrow, they might not be allowed out of the Petri dish.”
When we take away God’s power of creation, what are we telling him? We are saying, “God, you can’t create well enough, so we are taking this job into our own hands.” Who gave us the intelligence we have to break through science? Why would we want to undermine someone so powerful?
Some may say that God is still creating the embryo, he is still giving us the blueprints, but we must realize that we are taking that embryo, and we are genetically altering it to the point where it does not have the ability to become the person God designed.
Even those out there who do not have a religious background can understand why this is, in fact, a moral and ethical issue. We must soon face the reality of seeing those with a few thousand dollars to spend, creating their children in a laboratory. Are you ready?
Marissa Warms is a junior advertising/public relations major from Irving. Her column appears every Friday.
