Laboratory Techniques That Screen for Diseases in Embryos Are Now Being Offered to Create Designer Children.
So you want to design your baby? A girl you say? Blue eyes? Brown hair? You want her to be intelligent and athletic? Is there anything else you desire?
The first two articles posted on "designer babies" focused mainly on the prospect of genetically altering embryos for disease prevention and the option to choose the sex of one's baby; the thought of genetic alterations for cosmetic enhancements seemed a controversy too distant to dwell on. Yet, a clinic (Fertility Institutes) recently claimed to not only allow couples to create "savior babies" or to eliminate embryos of genetic risk but also to choose gender and physical traits in their babies. It seems the dawn of "designer babies" is upon us.
Cosmetic traits will be a difficult form of preimplantation genetic diagnosis; not only are features such as intelligence and athletic ability also affected by environmental factors but cosmetic traits are centered around a large number of DNA variations and may be harder to pinpoint. Yet, scientists in Iceland and the Netherlands have made major advancements, pinpointing the genetic markers responsible for eye, hair and skin color. Therefore, scientists can now offer the probability that a genetically enhanced embryo will have the specific hair/eye color requested by the parents.
While Fertility Institutes claims to offer cosmetic PGD, the controversial treatment is not on the open market yet. It has been met with much opposition as well as threats to ostracize any clinic who begins this embryonic enhancement. Even the general public does not agree with the implantation of cosmetic enhancement. According to statistics, the majority of people said they would support genetic tests for the elimination of specific diseases but when asked about cosmetic enhancement only 10% supported enhanced athletic ability, 10% supported improved height and 13% supported enhanced intelligence. Even key figures in the PGD world such as Dr. Kearns (found enough data to identify SNP's to relate N. European skin, hair and eye pigmentation) do not support preimplantation cosmetic enhancement. As said by Dr. Kearns, "I'm not going to do designer babies, I won't sell my soul for a dollar."
The future of natural wonder and imperfection hang in the balance.
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