A Socio-Ethical Debate on Biogenetics

Biogenetics is a newly resurfacing technology that is helping create genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that have the role of creating a more successful environment, including strongly immunified crops and more healthy children. This is one of the many possible articles to come on the ethical debate of biogenetics, and in this article, we will discuss the phenomena of “designer babies” and how their noble cause can actually lead to the social destruction of our country. 

Designer babies are most simply defined babies that are selected from a variety of embryos from a mother based on their genes to create the most ideal, or ‘perfect’ baby. In the future, scientists predict that we can further alter these embryos to create the best offspring possible for a parent. Many parents go through this process through programs like In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD), and Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR). Parents tend to go through these processes when they’re having trouble conceiving or when they have life-threatening genetic diseases; however, some parents, especially in the future, will have the opportunity to choose a baby with more athletic, intelligent, or musically inclined genes. For this article, we will be discussing the latter. 

The reason that this process is legal is because a parent’s job is to provide the best interest for their child, including ensuring that they live the longest and safest life. Due to the idea that bioengineering babies or making designer babies is moral and legal, as it allows a parent to fulfill their role. Designer babies seem like an all-beneficial process; it is, after all, a process that prevents babies with life threatening diseases from being born, allowing children to live much happier and healthier lives. It’s known that this possibly genetic modification of embryos was inspired by eugenics, an extremely racist program that led to a great deal of segregation through race, gender, and many more. The argument by many philosophers to justify this program is the idea that “we won’t reach the same consequences again”; however, in the following paragraphs, I will explain to you all about how this newer system will lead to no different results than what has happened in the past. 

It’s no surprise that programs intended to create healthier babies, like IVF, PGD, and CRISPR, cost a great deal of money. Due to this fact, we can infer that it’s usually the wealthier population that can afford these beneficial programs for their children; thus, it’s always the wealthier population that has healthier and more intelligent babies. However, a consequence that comes with this is the unfortunate increase in the unhealthiness and unintelligence in the poorer population in comparison to the more privileged. Because these programs are so expensive and not offered to everyone, the more privileged population gets to produce offspring that are already more intelligent and healthier from the womb itself; unfortunately, the underprivileged do not get this opportunity and have to fight against all the odds. This means that the social gap between the rich and the poor will increase, as this genetic modification program increases the gap.

Another problem that comes with genetic modification is the features that one can modify. We must keep in mind that because it is a parent’s job to ensure the best life for their child, so based on the circumstances, they can change certain features. For example, in countries like India and China, gender-related abortion happens frequently, as in those countries, it is a preference to have a male child in many families. Therefore, if a family from one of these countries got the opportunity to select embryos, and they were given a female and male option, they would most likely choose the male embryo. If many families in these types of countries were given these opportunities, the country would probably become primarily male, and sexism would be on the rise. Therefore, as seen here, sex-segregation is a huge consequence we see in both instances of genetic modification of children. 

Another issue is colorism. An example of a country with an epidemic of colorism is India, as there is an old belief saying that people with lighter complexions are more beautiful. While this idea is slowly disappearing, it is still a very prominent belief. Again, when it comes to embryo selection, it seems only just from a parent’s perspective to choose a child with a lighter complexion, as it would give the child an easier life with a more ‘beautiful’ face and with less discrimination. As seen here, while it is the parents’ intention to give their child an easier life, they end up increasing the colorism crisis in said region. 

These are just some social issues that occur as a result of creating ‘designer babies’. This idea seems to be so perfect from the outside, but really, not everything is so black and white. This program stems from a historically racist and sexist program, and the only justification for taking inspiration from such an inappropriate program is that it doesn’t result in the same consequences. However, this article successfully proves to us all that we reach the same consequences. It seems to be completely unethical and immoral to use such programs, and we should refrain from reaching such dangerous consequences.