Aussies flock to designer baby technology

Aussies flock to designer baby technology

www.news.com.au

AUSTRALIAN couples are flocking to a US fertility clinic that allows them to chose not only the sex of their child, but "cosmetic" features such as hair and eye colour.

California-based Dr Jeffrey Steinberg says he spoke to 14 Australian couples in January, as the latest controversial advances in the field of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) came online.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Create lots of embryos. Take cells from each. Scan them for lots of genetic traits and diseases. Select the embryo that you want to keep. Implant it. Destroy the other junk embryos. Pay from $20K USD to $500K USD, depending upon how much you were scanning for. Give birth to your designer baby.

Aussie IVF clinics are not allowed to select embryos based on gender. However, they can scan for genetic defects. That's why some couples heading to the USA.

I'm not convinced that IVF should be allowed... it's a touchy subject as it is. When couples can choose which embryo to implant it kind of seems like they're gambling. Like they're betting on which embryo will 'win'.

www.news.com.au
(visit the link for the full news article)

I don't know much about Aussie culture, but I highly doubt there would be a flock for this technology in the United States (considering the majority of the population is Christian).

However, this kind of technology has great potential. Designing cosmetic features is in my opinion, a little superficial and shallow, but not immoral by my standards. But most importantly, this could open up the door for research into making infants enter the world without having mental disabilities, having a high risk of catching deadly diseases, etc. Genetic engineering is the future.

This is just wrong. I can see using technology to treat disease and for prevention of disease, but anything beyond that is just wrong. But then again I am old fashioned and would rather not know the sex of a child before it is born, it changes the whole experience and loses all of the mystery, used to everyone, the whole family, would show up for the birth, and finding out if it was a boy or a girl was fantasticly exciting! For me and my family we will leave it up to nature and God to decide eye color, hair color, sex, ect.

This reminds me of the movie Gattaca,where the boy who had not been genetically engineered was always left behind.

But i like this idea it's better than the Spartans destroying week or deformed newborns.
A lot more humane.

Originally posted by SvenTheBerserK
This reminds me of the movie Gattaca,where the boy who had not been genetically engineered was always left behind.

But i like this idea it's better than the Spartans destroying week or deformed newborns.
A lot more humane.

Gattaca is one of my favorite movies. I think its message was loud and clear; that you really can not artificially create the perfect child. Even in science deviations occur and in nature well I believe that nauture's deviations are not mistakes but attempts at adapting to the changes in the environment.

reply to post by SvenTheBerserK


the difference is that when you actually have to kill a child, the threshold for implementing Eugenics is rather high.

'painless', out of sight, 'push-button' Eugenics, on the other hand, have no threshold at all, which means people won't think about what they're doing, while the consequences remain the same.

aborting or crippled children is one thing, tossing embryos because you did not at that moment like the predicted eye or hair color is something completely different. besides if genuine reproductive errors were artificially screened, resistence against them would no longer be an advantage. according to the Darwinian concept, this is detrimental, because you could produce 98% defect offspring, as long as you can pick the normal ones, there ar no problems. Q: what happens when you lose that option? extinction you say? what happens if you let it accumulate to the point of 100%? well, there's a price to pay for everything and hubris is particularly expensive.

whatever happened to natural selection and survival of the fittest?

humanity with all these technology will end up growing old and weak.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Originally posted by Melbourne_Militia
whatever happened to natural selection and survival of the fittest?

humanity with all these technology will end up growing old and weak.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Humans are natural .and now we have a selection form to fill in I dont have a problem with it really..Wouldnt do it personally but i dont see how any harm could come from it.I can just remember being taunted for not wearing branded shoes in school when i was young..Do you think in the future kids be yelling "haha you were not genetically picked as an embryo for certain attributes and i was! " Probably...but thats kids and thats about the same seperation from everyone else it would amount to.In short its doing no harm if the proper precautions are taken as to the motives of the mother and father.

[edit on 1-2-2009 by Solomons]

Originally posted by Solomons

Originally posted by Melbourne_Militia
whatever happened to natural selection and survival of the fittest?

humanity with all these technology will end up growing old and weak.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Humans are natural .and now we have a selection form to fill in

I dont have a problem with it really..Wouldnt do it personally but i dont see how any harm could come from it.I can just remember being taunted for not wearing branded shoes in school when i was young..Do you think in the future kids be yelling "haha you were not genetically picked as an embryo for certain attributes and i was!

" Probably...but thats kids and thats about the same seperation from everyone else it would amount to.In short its doing no harm if the proper precautions are taken as to the motives of the mother and father.

[edit on 1-2-2009 by Solomons]

No doubt that there would be a divide between the altered children and the God children. It can not be avoided because human behavior is just that way.

Yes but like i said,no more a divide than the children that have branded clothes,parents that have nice houses or fancy cars etc Children always find differences in people.

I don't think it's a good idea.

Screening for diseases is one thing, choosing hair and eye colour is another.

And yes, there could be a problem with this in the future. Imagine that everyone chooses to have blond babies but there is some problem associated with blond hair that is naturally controlled with the natural selection.

If they choose to have babies with the same characteristics they may be creating children that have that hypothetical problem more evolved than it would be naturally possible, and the more this advances the more evolved becomes that problem.

I hope I was clear enough for people to understand what I want to say, my English is not working very well today.

But what I wanted to show is that we do not know how things work in the long run, so we may be creating the conditions for some genetic problem that has been kept dormant.

Originally posted by GeeGee

However, this kind of technology has great potential. Designing cosmetic features is in my opinion, a little superficial and shallow, but not immoral by my standards. But most importantly, this could open up the door for research into making infants enter the world without having mental disabilities, having a high risk of catching deadly diseases, etc. Genetic engineering is the future.

Thank you. Its always great to see a straight forward honest refreshing opinion.

I agree with you.

Now here come the god's work and moralists.

This is just downright sick! Eye and hair color is merely the tip of the iceberg. They're going to manipulate these to the point of perfection, and raise these kids to believe that they are perfect. Do we not have enough of the "I'm better than you" bs in this world? Now we create more?

EVOLUTION will select the genes that need to be passed on, not a crackjob doctor looking to make a buck.

look i dont find this to be genetic engineering at all. it's not changing the genes or anything like that. All it is doing is finding out which embryo has which genetic features that are already present and then settling on that embryo which already has the genetic disposution you are wanting. they are not editing genes that wouldn't naturally be there. they are choosing an embryo who's genetic disposition is already there and it occured naturally. This is surely not genetic engineering or a designer baby. It is natural selection on a more selective notion.

I bellieve q designer baby would be such as inserting the genes you want and taking the genes you dont want in the baby.....

This is natural selection. Just the parants are more selective...

Originally posted by Melbourne_Militia
whatever happened to natural selection and survival of the fittest?
humanity with all these technology will end up growing old and weak.
Just my 2 cents worth.

That is already happening! Vaccines, antibiotics, surgeries, have already destroyed the concept of "the strongest survive", we are already rapidly allowing the propogation of individuals with flaws and weaknesses that would not survive, or produce offspring, in a natural environment.

If you are worried about that, embryo selection is the LEAST of the concerns. If anything it is probably the one hope for improvement in modern societies.

Let it be natural. Not chosen. The best joy of having a child is not knowing what that child will look like when he or she come into the world.

Originally posted by Sonya610

Originally posted by Melbourne_Militia
whatever happened to natural selection and survival of the fittest?
humanity with all these technology will end up growing old and weak.
Just my 2 cents worth.

That is already happening! Vaccines, antibiotics, surgeries, have already destroyed the concept of "the strongest survive", we are already rapidly allowing the propogation of individuals with flaws and weaknesses that would not survive, or produce offspring, in a natural environment.

If you are worried about that, embryo selection is the LEAST of the concerns. If anything it is probably the one hope for improvement in modern societies.

I'm impressed.

What a great - and real way of looking at this. So true. Plus it has resulted in over population.

Originally posted by Mekanic
Let it be natural. Not chosen. The best joy of having a child is not knowing what that child will look like when he or she come into the world.

I was born with Spina Bifida.

What a joy this is to live with.
What a joke.

I wish my parents had a choice.
Why would you make a child live with that or any other condition,when you have the option to stop it?

Edit: This is not a personal attack at you Mekanic

[edit on 2-2-2009 by SvenTheBerserK]

Originally posted by SvenTheBerserK
I was born with Spina Bifida.
What a joy this is to live with.
What a joke.
I wish my parents had a choice.

I'm not flaming you or trying to make a joke of your medical condition. Here's some sincere and honest questions to you:

Would you prefer that you had never been born at all?
Would you prefer that you were one of the rejected embryos and your parents had chosen a healthier embryo instead, that wouldn't have been you?

Feel free not to answer, as I'm not trying to upset you. Cool.