Essay

Applied Genetics: Designer babies

Playing God made possible

The emotionally and physical feeble species that has been living and thriving in this planet, humans, has one aspect of which we share in everyone’s mind. We want to be perfect. Today, in the very fast going world, these instinctive principals are used in a more intricate and efficient way. Due to our natural behaviour, natural reproduction of which includes imperfections such as inherited diseases, is no longer accepted. The exact disease of which is very life threatening is the disease of haemophilia. Haemophilia is the disease of which makes the person of which inherited it bleed longer in injuries and may bleed internally in areas such us knees, ankles and elbows. This act of internal bleeding is very dangerous to the body as it can very well damage organs, tissues and might result to death. The disease is normally inherited from parents to children. People who inherit Haemophilia from parents have very little blood clotting. The proteins that clot the blood is called clotting factors. These clotting factors work together with platelets to stop blood from bleeding when blood vessels are injured. This act is called blood clotting. Haemophilia can very rarely be gotten through your lifetime and not gotten from birth. This is caused by the antibodies produced by your body of which attack factors in the bloodstream. This prevents the act of clotting from working properly. The human mind always looks for new innovations of which aid these aspects. After years of rigorous research, scientists have finally manufactured a new innovation to stop inherited diseases to be inherited to the baby. This innovation is called designer babies. "Designer Babies “is a terminology which roughly translates to controlled reproduction.  Enhanced modern reproductive technologies allow parents and doctors to screen embryonic for genetic diseases (gotten by heredity) and select the healthiest embryos. With these processes done,  we can mend genetic disorders that a baby will have (from heridity) and even to manipulate  desirable traits for the unborn baby, thus it is the process of 'creating the baby as the way we prefer them through the manipulation. The process of designing the actual baby is the process of in vitro fertilization or else known as IVF. The process first starts with the control of ovarian hyperstimulation. The process is done to prevent premature ovulation. The next step is to retrieve the egg of which uses a small needle which uses help from trans-vaginal ultrasonography. The third step is to of course let the egg fertilize with the sperm in order to develop in to an embryo.  The fourth step is to check whether or not the embryo quality is good enough. This is done through taking photographs of which the photos are going to be evaluated by the embryologist. Lastly, the embryo is transferred back in to the womb. This process is either done in the 3^rd day where 6-8 cells are formed or at the 5^th day it is at the blastocyst stage. Using this process, the babies with the selected traits should be able to be born safely. As perfect as it sounds, it does raise some moral and physical issues as it is still "underdeveloped"

Designer babies have countless of benefits. Despite this fact, the benefits fall into several general criteria. Designer babies allow parents to give their child a healthy life as it prevents inherited genetic disorders as you can pick out the genetics according to your needs. Genetically engineering babies is an option, not a requirement for all parents as of course some may not agree and it is only vital for picking and depleting genetic disorders. This of course allow parents set their own limits for genetically engineering their baby.With all scientific and technological enhancements in this current world allows both the parents and the doctors to do embryonic screening of which shows the baby. It also prevents the passing of haemophilia of which is a rare bleeding disorder where irregular blood clotting occurs. The disease can be inherited to generations after the descendent. The inheritance of haemophilia can differ according to the kind of haemophilia the carrier has.. If the descendent has the haemophilia type a or b,  The gene that triggers haemophilia is located in the x chromosome thus not allowing father to son inheritance. It most commonly gets inherited to boys and inherited through mother to son inheritance. If the carrier has hemophilia c, they can inherit the disease regardless whether or not they are the father or the mother and it can occur in both gender of children. 

Designer babies, like every other innovations that has been innovated in the world has a limitation. Designer babies also has a pros and cons factor like every piece of controversial technology in the world. Even though they can raise a potentially healthy and good-looking generations through the process of designing the babies through selecting the preferred genes, there are several of limitations that the innovation holds (aside the ethical issues). The succes rates of the process used to initiate the process, ivf, does not have a perfect success rate. This can lead to the loss of a child. Furthermore, as designer babies allow parents to pick out the best physical traits of their children, this could lead to an unbelievably uniform society. There would be no ethnicity existing in the world as everyone will look almost uniform. If ethnicity is banished, no variety will exist in the world and delete races in general. 

Due to the fact that designer babies is still a technology in development, it creates a certain upsetting balance scale in retrospect to the factors apparent in the world. As stated before, the process of designer babies allows parents to choose their preffered traits of their child. This can be seen as a double edged sword as in one side, it is a positive aspect for a couple and in the other side it is a quite negative  aspect. Designer babies allows parents complete and effortless control on the genes picked by the parents and gives no chance for the child to resent against the adjustments the parents had made to their body. This can of course lead to a major mental upset to the baby as once they develop and grow up, they will eventually learn about the fact that the child is actually a modified and in some instances "Factory created" product. Of course, no one wants to accept the fact that they are indeed fully manufactured by their parents and a factory made product. Secondly, the child will produce and emmit emotions and preferences. When he learns about the pheotypes that have been used to make him, he might not favour some of them like the parents favour them. This can again lead to a major mental upset and the child will at some point resent to the parent which is an occassion that should not be acceptable in any time or place. Thirdly, the issue of gender inequality will rise again but this time, it will make a literal comeback. In many societies, preferrences are heavy on one specific gender. For example, in societies such as India of which consider males as the dominant gender, this issue will strengthen. When the technology of designer babies reach societies like India, countless of males will be bred and the gender ratio will be imbalanced. The ideal sex ratio is 970 girls every 1000 boys. With the application of such technologies in countries like India, there would be too many males and the act of reproduction of the next generation will be quite slow or even not possible if the condition goes too out of hand. Lastly, some sort of equality between societies will make a return. This is depicted in sources of media such as the movie Gattaca. If this was the case, it would mean that some statuses of the society are not able to afford such technologies will be discriminated and taken as the inferior kind as the estimated cost 190.000 American dollars

In conclusion, designer babies are a great mender regarding to the issues of inherited diseases which are present in today’s world more specifically, Haemophilia. It provides close to total protection as you are able to screen and pick out preferable traits of which does not contain diseases. There are a countless of benefits that designer babies hold but the two essential benefits are the ability of choosing preferable traits in regards to physical appearance and preventing inherited diseases such as Haemophilia. There is also another side of the spectrum of which contains the limitations of designer babies. These include the manufacturing of a uniform society and also the only close-to-perfect success rate. As a whole, I am inclined to believe that designer babies are ready to be further developed and should only be commenced once these limitations are considered greatly in order to produce a flawless society.

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Images

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