Baby Gene Chop Shopping
I doubt that this is a true story, or that Doctors would go along with a patient’s request for this, but it does pose an interesting ethical question. Should a parent that is disabled be allowed to genetically engineer a disabled child? Should you be allowed to request a dwarf? A deaf child? If homosexuality is truly a genetic function, how about a gay baby?
From the Washington Times here:
CHICAGO — The power to create “perfect” designer babies looms over the world of prenatal testing.
But what if doctors started doing the opposite?
Creating made-to-order babies with genetic defects would seem to be an ethical minefield, but to some parents with disabilities — say, deafness or dwarfism — it just means making babies like them.
And a recent survey of U.S. clinics that offer embryo screening suggests it’s already happening.
Three percent, or four clinics surveyed, said they have provided the costly, complicated procedure to help families create children with a disability.
Some doctors have denounced the practice, others question whether it’s true. Blogs are abuzz with the news, with armchair critics saying the phenomenon, if real, is taking the concept of designer babies way too far.
But the survey also has led to a debate about the definition of “normal” and inspires a glimpse into deaf and dwarf cultures where many people do not consider themselves disabled.
I think that parents who insist on creating handicapped children may not be mentally or emotionally fit to be a parent. They should be referred to a counselor by their doctor to deal with their own prejudices.
And remember, if they can identify the genes to make people a dwarf, or deaf, or gay, or color blind, then humanity is one step closer to a eugenics program in which undesirable genetic types are removed from the populace. The same people that would want to create a disabled baby are, in my opinion, on the same level ethically as anyone that would do genetic testing to weed out those traits in the human gene pool.
So you’re equating being gay with being disabled?
No of course not. My point is that if people begin to engineer children genetically to fit into certain societal categories, it is just as wrong as people engineering children to eliminate those categories altogether. I’m saying that it is a road that we as a society should not go down.
I included gay couples with dwarfs and deaf couples because each set of potential parents have expressed desires to raise children to be like them, and homosexuality may have genetic roots. These couples already raise children who are gay, deaf or a dwarf through adoption, and I have no problems with that. But to genetically modify a fetus to fit a certain profile is ethically and morally wrong.
In my opinion, it is just as wrong as any law that would mandate genetic screening for pregnant women to remove such fetuses from the gene pool.