Write An Essay On Designer Babies

The phrase “designer babies” refers to genetic interventions into pre-implantation embryos in the attempt to infl uence the traits the resulting children will have. At present, this is not possible, but many people are horrifi ed by the mere thought that parents might want to choose their children’s genes, especially for non-disease traits. I want to argue that the objections are usually not well articulated, and that even when they are, it’s far from obvious that such interventions would be wrong.
What precisely is the objection? Of course, there are safety objections, especially ones arising from unforeseen and harmful side-eff ects. For example, in mice, researchers have shown that the addition of a certain gene made them better at running …show more content…
Thus, the very term “designer babies” is a misnomer. No one will ever be able to design a child, that is, determine in advance what talents, skills, abilities, virtues, and vices the child will have.
Perhaps the objection is to the fact that the child’s genes were chosen for him by his parents, thus forcing the child to have certain talents and not others. For example, it might be thought that if the child’s parents picked genes associated with musical ability, their child would be forced to be a musician, when maybe he or she would rather have been an athlete. But this makes no sense. Consider a child of musicians who inherits musical ability naturally. That child may become a musician, but he or she certainly isn’t forced to do so because of his genetic inheritance. Far from it; if the child doesn’t practice, he won’t become a musician, no matter what his genetic make-up. Admittedly, when parents choose their children’s genes, they do so without the child’s knowledge and consent. However, this is true of all of us, not just those who are genetically modifi ed.