Designer Babies Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Designer Babies - Research Paper Example Parents should be allowed to modify their unborn child’s genes only for health reasons, and not cosmetic reasons. There are a number of parents who are not able to give birth to children. This is because it is proven scientifically that the baby will have a genetic disease and the baby will die when they are still young or in some instances the baby might even die before they are born. Parents always wish for the best when it comes to their baby and thus, they should be allowed to modify their unborn babies but only for health reasons. Recent research has shown that by use of various genetic techniques, parents can be assisted in preventing certain genetic diseases. Thus, these genetic techniques save the baby from undue suffering and death as well as assist in reducing emotional strain that is associated in bringing up an ill baby and also reduces medical costs significantly. This will evidently lead to happier parents and their babies. Further research done recently has prov en that there a number of parents who are giving birth to spare part children in few cases whereby if one baby suffers from a serious blood disease, the parents use IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) in selecting embryos in order to give birth to another baby who acts as a tailor-made, future bone marrow or blood donor. Such cases have shown that the baby will be born healthy and will assist the older baby stay well by being a donor (Bliss, 04). Where do we stop with enhancing and engineering unborn children? In instances like the spare part babies, it is unethical since doctors and parents are creating babies who act as an organ-donating factory and this should be discouraged at all cost. It is paramount to note that the fundamental issue of giving birth should be left to Mother Nature and when the spare part baby eventually grows up, they will be depressed once they discover that they born with the sole purpose of being an organ or blood donor. The principle behind giving birth is to ch erish and love the baby for what they are and not for what they can do for others (Naff, 08). Enhancing and engineering unborn children should strictly be done for health purposes only and not for cosmetic or spare part reasons. There is also a possibility of widening the already devastating imbalance between the poor and the rich since genetic techniques are extremely expensive and therefore only the rich can afford. This effectively means that only the rich will be able to eradicate genetic diseases in their families whereas the poor continue wallowing in the sea of genetic diseases (Murray and Dave Holmes, 11). The possibility of breeding a super-human race is indeed a reality since these designer babies will look down on those babies without genetic enhancements. Examples in reality are those people who are born with various disabilities and they are never comfortable when in the company of a normal person. They feel inferior and they also face intolerance. Thus, this discrimina tion against various people who are born with disabilities will evidently increase (Murray and Dave Holmes, 14). There is also the likelihood of parents being carried away in correcting perfectly healthy babies. This is possible since parents will always look for any opportunity to eliminate embryos since they have a gene for a particular disease and a dangerous trend will start