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I just wanted to hear a good discussion on people's stance of Designer Babies.

I'll use the term to encompass both medicinal value (eradication of disease etc) and cosmetic.

In Australia and the UK, it is illegal to allow parents to choose the sex of their baby, yet in the US it isn't.

Discuss

You can...design the sex of the baby?

Yes as of right now through In Vitro fertilisation, science is able to allow you to determine the sex of your baby.

Edit: I think there are multiple paths, but the most ready one is, as sex is determined by the chromosomes carried by the male sperm, the egg is simply fertilised with the desired sperm

That's horrible, babies aren't some sort of product you can customize.

i don't agree with messing with human eggs/sperm full stop! not even for medicinal reasons. its simply wrong on every level....

as Ashu said, we are not product, we are human beings!!!

If Sylus' explanation is correct, then it can hardly be considered designing a baby. It's so very simplistic. I mean like, you don't just go out and randomly pick a person to have sex with while blindfolded to make bb, why should it be any different if you're doing in vitro? From Sylus' explanation, nothing is being modified in any way, artificial or not, outside of what is already happening when you have the procedure performed, so again, it's hardly making a "designer baby". It's a more refined way of picking your partner. Now instead of just picking your partner, you get to pick which sperm to use. It's actually a pretty good idea if you ask me.

maybe Sylus should be a bit more detailed so we can fully understand?

OMG I'd LOVE a Prada baby.
Just imagine what our contemporary designers can do. A baby with a skin tone that matches your purse so you can carry it around in it..

Or a baby in a pot, with leaves.. like this: [spoiler][/spoiler] In any case.. it strikes me as though dear Sylus is connecting two different developments.
(The 'create an organism' one, artificial life; and developments in the human genome project.)

Juliette wrote:OMG I'd LOVE a Prada baby.
Just imagine what our contemporary designers can do. A baby with a skin tone that matches your purse so you can carry it around in it..

Haha a fashion baby!
That'd be quite popular.

this is not something new, the technique is quite old, already heard about it few years ago....

Personally I wouldn`t mess with the gender of the baby, I don`t care if it`s a boy or girl unless the baby is perfectly healthy which should be the main priority of every parent

On the other hand there are couples which dream their whole life of having a boy or a baby girl and try to make sure that with this procedure their dream comes true...
There is nothing artifcial in it, as said above, they just pick the sperm which carries the male gender information and inject it in the egg...the injection itself is the only artifcial procedure in this process...

if the sperm or egg itself would be artificial, I guess that would be something different but in this case both egg and the sperm are taken from the original participators....

It`s nothing "unusual" tbh, simply there are people which prefer it this way, heck this is nothing compared to other freaky stuff people are doing...

Imagine you go to an orphanage, you don`t take the first baby they give you, you PICK the one you want, this isn`t that much different, it`s just a matter of choice

Nitro

When the parents have a high risk of passing on genetic defects I support medical intervention.

BUT

To have a baby designed to order is just wrong in so many ways, for a start it will increase the class divide, rich people will all start having perfect ( or at least their vision of perfect ) children, and the poor will remain random, you would soon be able to spot people from wealthy families they would all look like clones of supermodels and desirable celebs, and like in the sci fi Gattica ( well worth watching ), those designed to have no defects or heath risks would end up having cheaper health insurance, and better job opportunities. Over time designer babies will become a new ruling class.

when it comes to the eradication of a genetic disease i believe that it to be a benifit to the child so in that instance yes i believe it ok to intervien. however when it comes to the decision of chaging the sex of a child i belive it to be wrong. It isnt thats difficult to change the sex of a unborn. however were would it stop. With the use of genetic intervention it is possible in theory to change hair colour, eye colour and various there aspects of an unborn child.

So being an individual becomes squed because you are designed to be somthing you wernt supposed to be.

Thats jsut my feelings on it

Ragnvald wrote:when it comes to the eradication of a genetic disease i believe that it to be a benifit to the child so in that instance yes i believe it ok to intervien. however when it comes to the decision of chaging the sex of a child i belive it to be wrong. It isnt thats difficult to change the sex of a unborn. however were would it stop. With the use of genetic intervention it is possible in theory to change hair colour, eye colour and various there aspects of an unborn child.

So being an individual becomes squed because you are designed to be somthing you wernt supposed to be.

Thats jsut my feelings on it

If I would choose to intervien in what my child should be like ( which is very unlikely i will) I would choose only the sex of the unborn if I was too obsessed with it....
The appearance of the baby should be as you say " Gods work" and not yours, choosing the colour of eyes or hair would be a bit creepy imho, at least for me, something like building your own frankenstein

Everything has it`s purpose and I have no intention in interfering, mother nature is the best artist when it comes to choosing the appearance of the baby....

Besides, who would want a kid that wouldn`t look anything like you just because you choosed to give it green hair and red eyes???

Nitro

Nitro S wrote:Besides, who would want a kid that wouldn`t look anything like you just because you choosed to give it green hair and red eyes???

There's no accounting for taste.. that goes for me too.

I'd order 1 million babies with the exact same features.. High-Aryan excellence. They can be different in their own way, but the cosmetics should be identical (well, split in 2 of course, the boys and the girls). Failures should be recycled.

I'd rather go with latin-like babies.
Infact, I'd rather go with nothing, because playing God with creating a loop in human evolution and doing some baby-shopping of similar look would lead to various negative outcomes. However, that's not the subject, so I will not develop..