Make Way for Designer Babies

[tk2kewl]

Source: msnbc

Make Way for Designer Babies

By Leanne Ta
NBCBayArea.com

Want a baby with blonde hair and green eyes? No problem.


A Los Angeles fertility clinic is offering a new service that would allow couples to choose their baby's physical traits, including eye and hair color, the BBC reported.

<snip>

The new service has sparked debate within the global medical community, raising huge questions about the ethics of genetic enhancement.

Trait-selection will be based on a technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD. The process has long been used for medical purposes, but never for cosmetic purposes.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29489602/

[devilgrrl]

1. Because parenting has nothing to do with how the child turns out as a adult!

What a joke! :nuke:

[WriteDown]

2. Gattaca, here we come! nt

[vaberella]

8. That's the first shit that crossed my mind. Good God. n/t

[tanngrisnir3]

46. OMG! If humans ever becoming as boring as that POS, we're doomed

[Ilsa]

52. Great movie. My hubby didn't figure out what the name of the movie

meant until I mentioned it to him.

I can't believe they want to go down this road.

[robinlynne]

3. actually Hitler did try to do that many years ago.....

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. He lacked the control that we now have with current science, though.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Are we paving the way for a Trek-style Eugenics war?

[Alexander]

6. Get me a Ricardo Montalban type.

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. KHAAAAANNNN!!!!

[Auggie]

9. Hello... Pelosi...?

STOP THIS NOW

[Lost in CT]

28. Why???? nt

[Odin2005]

10. I see the luddites are already freaking out... n/t.

[anonymous171]

48. Because giving the plutocrats even more advantages over the masses is OK.

[Maru Kitteh]

53. They can only select for identifiable traits that are ALREADY THERE.

Don't believe every single sensationalist MSM headline that is thrown at you. Research respected scientific sites.

[Alcibiades]

11. You get what you get

This is sheer hubris. When you sign up to be a parent, you get what you get. Tampering with nature in this way is to invite the wrath of the gods.

[T Wolf]

12. Where do you draw the line? If it is possible to eliminate or negate a trait (say, susceptibility

to diabetes), should that be allowed?

What about susceptibility to obesity?

Etc.....

Is humanity mature enough to handle the power that science is giving us?

My perverse self says to allow anything because it drives the fundies up the wall.

[Posteritatis]

25. I'm not sure how drawable such a line is

Especially if it's to the point of "a" line. I'd case-by-case something like this - eye colour is benign, protective measures against diabetes is a Good Thing, but gaming skin color for most reasons or ramping up the parts of the brain responsible for religious feelings would be rather different.

I can't say "it's all bad!" but I also can't say "it's all good!" and I don't think I can comfortably point out exactly where something stops being one and starts being the other. The squick reaction is worthless - it's not a valid moral compass at all - but I also know there'd be some things, or some reasons for things, that I just couldn't accept logically or emotionally, many of whom I'd have to be faced with before I'd know that for certain.

It's not something I can just condemn as a whole concept as easily as a lot of people here are wont to. Intent matters; consequences matter; options opened up or closed by the process matter. It's too complex to think of any other way.

(Of course, driving the fundies up the wall is fun too.)

[chrisa]

31. "Is humanity mature enough to handle the power that science is giving us?"

I think we all know the answer to that one.

[ozu]

33. Ha. Seriously.

It may start off with benign intentions but within 10 years most cosmetic genetic modifications will be for breast and penis size.

[robinlynne]

36. hell no. humanity? The very last American Jaguar died this week. gone.

The species is gone from the continent. an entire species (of so many, I know, but think about what we are, killing off species to build cement parking lots.)

[Thothmes]

44. Not from the Contintent

they still thrive in southern Mexico. last time I checked, Mexico is still part of North America.

[robinlynne]

45. ok. I googled it. It was the last one in the country. I thought it said continent.

still sad as hell.

[YOY]

13. This is interesting...

The positive possibilities are great. THe negative equally as great.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

14. This naziism needs to be stopped now!

I'm not exactly sure how it's nazi, or why it needs to be stopped...

but I'm jumping on the bandwagon, goldernit!

[wuushew]

15. self-delete

n/t

[Politicalboi]

16. I can se doing this for the sex of the child

But not eye color or hair color. When I was a kid we had a family on our block with 6 girls and they wanted a boy so bad. They had another baby and it too was a girl. Some people have more children to try to have both sexes. So do the parents love all of them equally? Or resent that they didn't get what they wanted?

[T Wolf]

17. I don't think the idiots of the world should determine policy. You don't structure something

for the extreme condition.

[Matariki]

18. hmmm, did you live next to my stupid, fundy step brother-in-law?

He was a macho prick who hated women. Kept getting my step sister pregnant in his selfish quest for a male child. After EIGHT girls he finally had a boy - and if there is any justice in the world I sure hope that boy grows up to be a wild, hedonistic and happy tranny.

[Politicalboi]

20. Well if he lived in Simi Valley in the 60's

On Olympic st then maybe. Is his last name Lindsay?

[Matariki]

34. Maryland in the 80s. Probably still there. I guess they're legion

*sigh*

[rebecca_herman]

39. I mostly agree

For some reason gender doesn't bother me but hair/eye color or other traits would. Maybe it's because I have a strong desire to raise a particular sex child someday. I'm not a parent yet, so my feelings may change, but I guess I find the gender thing easier to understand from my perspective. But I can't understand the looks thing and something about it bugs me. I don't know why.

[rolltideroll]

19. I see nothing wrong with this

If it gives people choice as to how their baby looks or the gender,so what? If it is safe, and improves the species I do not see anything objectionable. No reason to be a Luddite.

[Posteritatis]

22. But but but [insert logical fallacy of your choice here]! (nt)

[tonysam]

24. No.

Just because you have a "perfect" kid at the time of birth doesn't mean some disability can't happen later on. So do you suggest parents have a "choice" to kill a disabled kid then? That's Peter Singer's idea, and he's repulsive.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

38. I'm sorry. Wut?

What does this have to do with murdering children?

[Posteritatis]

40. This is one of those "leave your logic at the door" topics (nt)

[anonymous171]

51. If this was a free service, then you might have a point.

Otherwise it's just another way to make the rich more powerful.

[Blue_Tires]

21. it usually starts with something simple and easily digestible by the public

but left unchecked it can take us down a very dangerous path...

[Lyric]

23. Four words: none of my business.

It is neither my right nor my place to pontificate to others about what sort of breeding choices they make, even if it means that people are allowed to do things that I find morally objectionable. Their bodies, their gametes, their embryos, their choice.

[Posteritatis]

27. I try to stick by this one as well

Some extreme ideas I'd still be reaching for a pitchfork over - let's say hypothetically someone decides to interpret "children should be seen and not heard" literally - but for each of those there's a lot of other things where I'd pretty much have to think "this isn't my concern."

Of course, I also self-ID as a transhumanist, which would make me Foulest Evil to some. ;P

[TheCoxwain]

26. I want a daughter with looks of Julie Delpy and the brains of Richard Feynman..

Possible?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

29. Do they offer any that change their own diapers and clean their room? And, have a warranty?

[Lance_Boyle]

30. I want one with Downs, autism, and... red hair.

Wonder how much they'd charge for my custom designed baby?

[NeedleCast]

32. I don't have a problem with this

assuming it's safe for the child and mother. Not sure I'd want to be in on the early stages of this technology though.

[LanternWaste]

35. I can only hope that...

I can only hope that medical science and medical ethics maintain at least a stalemate in this race the two seem to have been running since time immemorial.

[jody]

37. Scientists will be able to transfer genes from non-human life forms to embryos for many purposes,

i.e. a true chimera.

Will the modified human embryo or chimera have a soul as is accepted by all who believe there is an afterlife?

[NeedleCast]

41. Why would that matter to anyone but the parents?

[jody]

43. That's why I asked the question. n/t

[blues90]

42. what a fucked up world and fucked up people

Crips what's next that will spill out of mans insane mind. Sure why the hell not and they can eat GMO crops and attend some sort of twisted fake private religious mind altering school and wear uniforms and have a chip implanted in not only their brain but in their screwed up parents brain as well. They can all shop at wal-mart and eat at McD's which is all that will be left.

Man I hope I die before this swill becomes popular.

Just keep screwing with nature and make some sort of robotic master race. Hell they can even stock up on home grown organs just in case they want to live for ever.

Life gets more and more surreal all the time, I'm glad I lived before it got so very fucked up when at least something seemed real as far as real goes.

[anonymous171]

47. Genetically Enhanced Plutocracy, here we come!

[Bonescrat]

49. I want one with purple stripes. Or one that glows in the dark! nt

[Maru Kitteh]

50. This is such utter sensationalist (poorly reported) tripe. The technology ISN'T there yet, for one

The clinic said it HOPES to offer this service and THINKS that they are close to having that eye/hair capability, but says even then it wouldn't be a sure thing.

I don't have much time tonight so I'm going to try and make this as simple and brief as possible.

They are NOT talking about inserting genes that are not already there for blue eyes and blonde, curly hair. They are talking about screening embryos in an IVF dish, already dividing - for traits that they already have, or do not have.

In other words, if both mom (or donor) and dad (or donor) have brown eyes and dark brown hair they are still going to have to somehow miraculously conceive that blue-eyed, curly-headed, blonde-haired baby in order for the PGD technicians to select that embryo for implantation.

This is a bucketload of sensationalist garbage, meant to sell a news story, and to get some skanky publicity for the IVF clinic.

PGD is a vital diagnostic tool that has allowed thousands of couples to prevent tragic, deadly and debilitating diseases for their children, many times after they have already watched a little one suffer and die. I despise this kind of sloppy, willfully ignorant and uninformed "reporting" by the breathless, brainless media.

[Ilsa]

54. You know, it is doubtful that alot of people there know what attributes

their spouse really was born with. I bet they thought he or she was born with that perfect nose or strong chin. Now I guess they can skip the plastic surgery if they design their kids "right" from the git-go.

I'm really turned off by this shit.

[sofa king]

55. Tentacles? Can I get tentacles yet?

And what about a nice houndstooth pattern for my dog... and my baby!