Designer Babies: The Good and the Bad

From UBC Wiki
Designer Babies
How Designer Babies are Made
Child-with-DNA-of-3-parents-Designer-Babies-New-World-Order.jpg [1]
The process of mitochondrial donation
Making a "Better Baby"
are-designer-babies-on-the-rise.jpg [2]
Selection of genes: gender, eye colour, hair colour

A "Designer Baby" is a "baby derived from an embryo selected for a particular purpose or from one whose genome has been modified for a particular purpose"[3]. There are pro’s and con’s of being able to modify a child’s specific genes. With the technology we may be able to avoid specific and deadly diseases, but the technology may be used cosmetically. The ethical debates and where to draw the line are where designer babies can be difficult to enforce.

Pros

Prevent/Reduce Diseases and Inheritable Conditions

Many parents choose to have prenatal testing already to screen for things like Down syndrome, spina bifida, heart defects, cystic fibrosis or other birth defects[4]. “The two most common forms of diagnostic testing, amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling (CVS), are invasive procedures that pose a small but real risk of pregnancy complications, including miscarriage”[5]. If a baby were to have one of these defects, the parents option was usually to continue the pregnancy or to abort the baby. With the new technologies such as CRISPR, geneticists may be able to replace a segment of the gene that accounts for a specific defect. Since it is new technology, they have yet to know whether the change could affect other specific traits, which is why procedures like this could be potentially dangerous.

More Able to Succeed

The idea of having your child succeed is probably one of the best thoughts for most people. “The possibility that enhancement of learning and memory or even IQ is feasible through genetic engineering”[6]. Changing up genetics can help children with their IQ and possibly other skills. This gives the child a greater shot at life if they are able to use these skills given to them through genetic enhancement and engineering.

Cons

Ethics

One of the controversies that arise with the idea of genetically modified babies is an ethical debate. People may use this technology for their own benefit to produce a perfect baby. Engineering a child’s genes can also take away what it means to be human. Babies are created and the makeup of their genes is randomly based on the parents’ genes. If we modify any child’s gene sequence, it almost takes away from their life, even if it is in their best interest. “When it comes to empowering parents to decide what sort of children they have beyond questions of serious childhood diseases, professional organizations cannot even agree on the appropriate ethical framework"[7].

The FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) has been looking into the ethics of “mitochondrial manipulation therapies”[8]. Their Cellular, Tissue, and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee had been in charge of this issue, but it’s a slippery slope of what characteristics to include. Obviously the knowledge of diseases can be used as a benefit, but should they allow a parent to decide on other aspects of their child?

The British Medical Association also has an opinion on the ethics of designer babies. They question that with this new technology, children may be at risk of rejection “because they do not have [desirable] qualities”[9]

Eugenics

Eugenics can also play into this debate. Eugenics is defined as “the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population”[10]. Through reproduction we can take away undesirable traits and create more desirable traits by having people with good traits reproduce. Designer babies can help with this phenomenon and some may say that we could be heading for “what the Nazis did”[11]. Creating the perfect baby by influencing race, gender, eye colour, intelligence, athleticism, etc.

Creating a Perfect Genes Race

Could this create a race for better children? If people start choosing to have designer babies, it may create a chain reaction. As more people start to use these technologies, the standard may raise drastically and many people wouldn't want their child to fall far behind the rest. Rob Sparrow brings up an amazing point on "if a failure to enhance your child will leave your child effectively socially crippled because their genes are so much worse than the genes of people who have chosen to make a better baby, this looks a bit like child abuse" [12]. If other children can outcompete your child, why wouldn't you want your child to have a greater intelligence or athleticism or any other desirable skill as well? This is one of the questions we have to ask when creating rules for designer children.

Technologies

CRISPR

In England, on February 2016, Kathy Niakan “was granted a licence this February by the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to edit the genes of human embryos for research purposes”[13]. This shows a recent major step towards designer babies. At first designer babies were seen as just picking desirable donors or creating embryos then picking the best one, but with this step, gene editing is closer than ever and it may be possible to change a certain gene in a fertilized embryo.

The approach, CRISPR, also known as "Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats" [14], is a new technology and Niakan plans to use it in her research. Her idea is to “knock out some of the key genes whose patterns of activity differ between cell types”[15] on embryos that have developed for just a couple days.

Video on the CRISPR technique here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHesvjW1bKM

Mitochondrial Donation

Mitochondrial disease affects the mitochondria, or the powerhouse’s of the cell and some symptoms can “include poor growth, loss of muscle coordination, visual and hearing problems, mental disorders, heart disease and liver disease”[16]

In 2015 Britain passed a law “allowing the creation of babies by IVF using biological material from three different people”[17]. This makes it the first Country to be able to do this procedure.

The process involves taking DNA from a laboratory fertilized egg, putting it in the third parent’s (women without mitochondrial disease) egg and then implanting the egg back into the original mother. Babies born through this process will essentially have three parents, even though the DNA from the third is virtually non-existent; however, they will have the third parent to thank for their lack of mitochondrial disease.

Video on Mitochondrial Donation process and debate here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI-RTC3dOEg

Conclusion

Does a child have a better quality of life if they have blue eyes versus brown eyes, or brown hair versus blonde hair? That is the question we must take into consideration when we are playing with a child’s genes and the ethics that must follow.

Overall, the idea of designer babies can result in some really ground breaking discoveries and technologies, which can be used to prevent some deadly diseases and give a child a better life. There are some cons and ethically-wise, the means can be used superficially. With the right laws and regulations, technologies like CRISPR could turn into something very useful.

References

  1. ↑ http://beginningandend.com/designer-babies-playing-god-in-the-womb/
  2. ↑ http://www.christianpost.com/news/are-designer-babies-on-the-rise-158971/
  3. ↑ designer baby. (n.d.) Collins Dictionary of Medicine. (2004, 2005). Retrieved August 5 2016 from http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/designer+baby
  4. ↑ Prenatal Screening Tests. (n.d.). Retrieved August 05, 2016, from http://www.healthline.com/health/pregnancy/prenatal-testing#ThirdTrimester5
  5. ↑ Suter, S. M. (2007). A brave new world of designer babies? Berkeley Technology Law Journal, 22(2), 897.
  6. ↑ Hunt, I. (1999). Designer babies. Professional Ethics (Gainesville, Fla.), 7(3-4), 67.
  7. ↑ Murray, T. H. (2014). Stirring the simmering "designer baby" pot. Science, 343(6176), 1208. doi:10.1126/science.1248080
  8. ↑ Murray, T. H. (2014). Stirring the simmering "designer baby" pot. Science, 343(6176), 1208. doi:10.1126/science.1248080
  9. ↑ Hunt, I. (1999). Designer babies. Professional Ethics (Gainesville, Fla.), 7(3-4), 67.
  10. ↑ The definition of eugenics. (n.d.). Retrieved August 05, 2016, from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/eugenics
  11. ↑ Savulescu, J. & Sparrow, R. Monash Bioethics Review (2013) 31: 36. doi:10.1007/BF03351342)
  12. ↑ Savulescu, J. & Sparrow, R. Monash Bioethics Review (2013) 31: 36. doi:10.1007/BF03351342)
  13. ↑ Ball, P. (2016). Kathy niakan: At the forefront of gene editing in embryos. Lancet (London, England), 387(10022), 935. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(16)00573-0
  14. ↑ CRISPR/Cas9 Guide. (n.d.). Retrieved August 05, 2016, from https://www.addgene.org/CRISPR/guide/
  15. ↑ Ball, P. (2016). Kathy niakan: At the forefront of gene editing in embryos. Lancet (London, England), 387(10022), 935. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(16)00573-0
  16. ↑ Winter, G. F. (2015). Mitochondrial donation. British Journal of Midwifery, 23(4), 236-236. doi:10.12968/bjom.2015.23.4.236
  17. ↑ Winter, G. F. (2015). Mitochondrial donation. British Journal of Midwifery, 23(4), 236-236. doi:10.12968/bjom.2015.23.4.236
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