Designer Baby: Revolution or playing God?



If you can "order" the birth of a new girl, will she grow up as smart as Madame Curie and as beautiful as Venus? Or the appearance of a baby boy who is as smart as Einstein and as charming as Adonis? How will you customize skin tone, hair color and eyes? The advancement of science means that the concept of designing babies is neither outrageous nor utopian. It is technically feasible to develop your own unique creation in the near future. Humans should pay attention to the thorny issues of ethics. Is genetic engineering morally permissible, or even desirable?

Think of it as a very personal experiment. The innovations that are already available will certainly allow anyone willing to pay the cost of creating new humans to conduct this experiment, even though the experiment is intended to be "better." I mean designer baby. You will actually use the same technology used to create genetically modified tomatoes, mice, or monkeys to design and introduce a new type of baby. Baby will be an avant-garde word, a eugenic person. Designing a baby is like buying a customized pizza with specific ingredients, such as goat cheese, green olives, and no onions. You can design your future GMO Sapien baby with some desired characteristics, such as blue eyes, certain blood Genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs and polycystic kidney disease are resistant.

 The philosophy of eugenics can be traced back to Aristotle. According to philosophers in the 4th century BC, "If men want boys, they should tie their left testicles before intercourse." Michael J. Sandel in his book "A Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering" (2007) discusses the pros and cons of genetic engineering. Thanks to the combination of two powerful technologies, it is now possible to play God through genetic modification of human creation. The first is today’s ancient technology, in vitro fertilization (IVF), which was developed 40 years ago by Nobel Prize winner Robert Edwards and his colleague Patrick Step. Founded by Patrick Steptoe. The second is CRISPR-Cas9, which is a cutting-edge genetic engineering tool that makes it very easy to directly manipulate early embryos. When combined with IVF, modern genetic technology enables scientists to change DNA, even if it consists of only a single cell or a few cells, and can also serve as a blueprint for the human germline.

The progress of designing babies is still in the development stage. The Hollywood movie "Spirited Away" is a fictional film directed by Andrew Nicole, shaping a society where eugenic babies become reality. The film highlights potential problems. For society, it is important to evaluate the many scenarios of the designer's baby's future. Scientists’ knowledge is not only embodied in technical viewpoints, but also in their understanding of different social environments, so their warning suggestions must be taken into consideration. Although this may seem tempting, ethical, social, and socioeconomic aspects should be examined before technological advancement. As the future of designer babies becomes a reality, society should strive to consider various sit