Chapter 1. Designer Babies?
1.1 Designer Babies?
Short Description
Thousands of children are born annually with devastating genetic diseases that eventually prove fatal. For example, Maigon was only a few months old when doctors told her parents that she suffered from Tay-Sachs disease and had only a short time to live.
Long Description
Thousands of children are born annually with devastating genetic diseases that eventually prove fatal. For example, Maigon was only a few months old when doctors told her parents that she suffered from Tay-Sachs disease and had only a short time to live. The disorder led to Maigonís loss of all her motor skills, her ability to speak, and finally her life. Fearing that another child might suffer the same fate, Maigonís parents decided to remain childless. However, a year after Maigon died, doctors presented them with the hope of bearing a child free of Tay-Sachs. Researchers had discovered the precise genetic abnormality underlying the disorder. Also, in vitro fertilization techniques enabled doctors to handle early embryos more effectively. These advances were critical in the development of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), a strategy that could permit couples to have children free of Tay-Sachs. Some of Reneeís eggs were fertilized with her husbandís sperm in the laboratory. The tiny embryos were tested for the Tay-Sachs gene. The embryos that proved free of the disease were implanted in Renee. One developed into a baby. Brittany proved to be the successful culmination of the dreams of nearly a decade of research. In recent years, hundreds of babies have been conceived through PGD, free of a variety of deadly genetic diseases. The potential for people to use the developing technology to select for more than health poses a significant moral dilemma. Parents could possibly choose genes not only for health but also for cosmetic reasonsófor such characteristics like height or even eye or hair color. PGD was intended to enable parents to have children free of deadly genetic diseases, not to provide them with an opportunity to produce designer babies.