Designer Babies

Designer Babies

I've been poked and prodded at ever since I can remember, but what I didn't know was that I was actually a poked and prodded at individual even before my existence. Transplanted DNA is what they should have named me instead of Wang. I find my existence to be not as real or as wanted as others who were conceived naturally with both loving parents and even the idea of other loving parents adopting their children. It just seems unfair that my parents would make decisions for me before I was even born. The idea of someone wanting to create their child is absurd. Our bodies own process of getting rid of the bad genes is something we can not control. We can not begin to have the same instinct as our bodies. Allowing this to go on could jeopardize an individual's identity and its remarkableness and how far is too far in parents decision making. This process will also affect the "designed baby" emotionally for the child may think they are not real in the sense that they were created for selfish purposes. Altering an embryo's genetics affects the child physically and emotionally. As well as affecting the society as a whole in the long run.

Designer babies, a term used by journalists, are described as "advanced reproductive technologies allowing parents and doctors to screen embryos for genetic disorders and for selecting healthy embryos" (Bionet). There are three ways that can be used to create this "designer baby". "The simplest way to a designer child is human cloning: taking a cell from an adult and combining it with a human egg to make an identikit clone of the adult. This is the ultimate pedigree child with guaranteed genes [Ð'...] Another more difficult way to make designer people, or a super race, is to take sperm or eggs, or cells in a developing embryo, and add new genes to them. This is called germ cell alteration [Ð'...] A third way is to alter cells after birth. This is called somatic cell alteration. Here the effects will die out when the person dies, and will not be passed onto a second generation of designer babies" (Dixon).

Parents make decisions for their children before they are even born. The unborn fetus is robbed of molding their own identity because their physical traits have been chosen for them indirectly. The child is artificial and unnatural. A science experiment preformed wrongfully, in hopes to create one's self conscious idea of a "perfect being." Thus, the making of the child is untrue. The first spark of life digitally fused together in a test tube, by the hands of scientists, not naturally conceived in the mother's womb. Sure the genes come from the birth parents, but altering the outcome of both the mother and father combined defeats the whole point of making a baby together. "What is more, we know from tracking the life of the adult exactly what the designer baby will look like at the age of two, ten, twenty, thirty and so on" (Dixon). The idea of knowing what ones child will look like when it grows up defeats the whole purpose of life itself. There are no surprises, no set backs, just this steady ongoing nothingness forming a society where there is no more emotions.

Parents should love their child for the person they become, no matter what decisions they make in their lifetime. Decisions only they themselves can make, based on their own thoughts. Thus, piecing together the person and their identity, like a puzzle of who they want to grow up to be. Not being able to choose hair and eye color is like taking away that persons right as an individual, freedom of choice. The unborn child will grow up to make their own choices, regardless of the way nature intended them to look like. This is inevitable, and the way of life. Otherwise the child exists as a trophy in the eyes of its parents. A life created against the beauty of traits that make each person unique in their own, one of a kind self made image. Life is a precious commodity, the only thing we ourselves have full control over. The twists and turns, ups and down, that are indeed paved in stone by the footsteps made based on our own choices. By genetically changing the appearance of an individual, they exist as the person their parents always wished they had been created as. Not even breathing yet, the child's parents are vicariously living their lives through the ability to change the traits nature intended them to have. The child lives a shameful life. They are only loved because they are carved perfectly into a person that is living a lie.

Creating such robots that never have to feel pain or ugliness or being unacceptable because we have already made them acceptable to life. The tin man in wizard of oz is a walking robot with no heart. He resembles the outer shell that will become of designer babies and their flawlessness, filled with no inner hurt or emotion because life has put no burdens on them. Certain challenges that we may come across while forming our own identities, can be taken from us before we are even given a chance to experience them for ourselves. Parents are now given the option of altering the lives, and appearances of their children, before they are conceived. We can't choose our lives, and it's not moral to give these rights to people who are selfish and unhappy with their own. Even if the changes made to the unborn are to benefit a healthier more substantial life, it is still selfish to take away their purpose by pre planning their future, based on an absurd idea of a more beneficial life. Everyday challenges we face, and decisions we make, inevitably pave the roads to our destiny. Painting a picture of who we become and the very mold of the person we grow up to be. The challenges and experiences we go through in life make or break our character. The feelings we have, and how we deal with certain issues, are a result of accepting the traits or imperfections that destiny sprinkled through the journey of our lives. If were all made the same life would be meaningless. It would be like looking at the world through dark sunglasses, changing the way we view ourselves and the lives of other people every day, creating a black and white colored world that in which we live. The thought of imperfection is now a burden to society and no one is accepted for the person nature created. Perfection is not true, because no one is perfect. There are no two people alike. Even twins have their differences. It is who we are on the inside that counts and it is sad that people feel that they need to change what we were made of to be viewed as an oasis of perfection. If we were to take away every flaw in our DNA there wouldn't be anything left, just emptiness, creating a world of uncaring souls, and blank pages in the stories of our life. Our existence is a story