Tuesday, September 23, 2008

"Designed" Babies

The question for Trials ESL's extended response essay today was a rather interesting one. "Should parents be permitted to design their babies?" Basically 'designing' their babies means using Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) to select 'the' embryo that has the genes that codes for the all desired characteristics a parent wants before actually implanting 'that' embryo into the uterus of the mother.

An issue that was discussed in the 4 articles given was the use of the PGD technique to create a baby in order the save a son. The situation was something like this:

The son had a very rare bone marrow disease and will soon die if there are no suitable donors. As such, the parents 'created' a baby using PGD to have the same bone marrow as their son, so that the designed-baby can be that suitable donor.

Of coz there are many other issues brought up in the articles, but my question now is,

"Is it ethical for humans to create one for another?"

The article further discuss how it will affect the psychological growth of the designed-child. Imagine yourself being the designed-child, brought to earth with a pre-existing purpose. Wouldn't that be very hurtful, especially if it is just to save your sibling's life. I don't mean I want my sibling to die, but look at it this way, you were CREATED so that your sibling may live. Its not as if you had the choice to even think about it. Its not your willingness to save, but destiny to. It also goes to show how much more your parents care about the sibling than you.

Another scenario, what if the designed-child failed to carry out its 'purpose'. For example something went wrong and the sibling died. Do you think the designed-child will be able to live a normal life? Or would the parents treat him as a failure? Would he be sad and face eternal guilt coz he could not fulfill his 'purpose'?

This is indeed a very interesting topic in genetics, but there are just too many questions that needs to be discussed, questions that have no definite answer, no right nor wrong. However I personally think it is not right to save a physical life by sacrificing a psychological life.

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