Set in the year , it describes a society whose population is grown in vats in an impersonal central hatchery, graded into five tiers of different intelligence by chemical treatment of the embryos. There are no parents as such — families are considered obscene. Brave New World has become the inevitable reference point for all media discussion of new advances in reproductive technology.
The spectre of a harsh, impersonal and authoritarian dystopia always looms in these discussions of reproductive control and selection. But the prospect of genetic portraits of IVF embryos paints a rather different picture.
If it happens at all, the aim will be not to engineer societies but to attract consumers. Should we allow that? Even if we do, would a list of dozens or even hundreds of embryos with diverse yet sketchy genetic endowments be of any use to anyone? Thanks to Crispr-Cas9, it seems likely that gene therapies — eliminating mutant genes that cause some severe, mostly very rare diseases — might finally bear fruit, if they can be shown to be safe for human use.
Clinical trials are now under way. But modified babies? Crispr-Cas9 has already been used to genetically modify nonviable human embryos in China, to see if it is possible in principle — the results were mixed. And Kathy Niakan of the Francis Crick Institute in the UK has been granted a licence by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority HFEA to use Crispr-Cas9 on embryos a few days old to find out more about problems in these early stages of development that can lead to miscarriage and other reproductive problems.
Most countries have not yet legislated on genetic modification in human reproduction, but of those that have, all have banned it. The idea of using Crispr-Cas9 for human reproduction is largely rejected in principle by the medical research community. Besides, there seems to be little need for gene editing in reproduction.
It would be a difficult, expensive and uncertain way to achieve what can mostly be achieved already in other ways, particularly by just selecting an embryo that has or lacks the gene in question. Read More. November 08, To top. English Examples Translations. Sign up for free and get access to exclusive content:.
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And very unlikely ever. The response was the same in , when a fertility clinic in Fairfax, Virginia, offered sex selection of embryos to screen against diseases that only happen in boys. In , when 23andMe was granted a patent for a tool that predicts the likelihood of traits in babies based on DNA of two parents, the question of patenting designer babies was raised.
In , when the U. Last month , when Genomic Prediction, a New Jersey company, announced its DNA screening panel for embryos would also assess the risk for complex diseases such as Type 2 diabetes and heart disease that are caused by multiple genes, fears of engineering babies with high IQ or athletic prowess emerged. The same issues arose on Nov. The designer baby doom scenarios have not evolved with the technology. But no one seems to be questioning whether these traits are solely a product of our genes such that they can be selected or edited in embryos.
Wondering about designer babies was understandable in the early days, but repetition of these supposed fears now suggests lack of understanding of how DNA, and the genes they encode, work. The increased ability to control and manipulate embryos presents many possibilities for improving the health of children through prenatal diagnosis , but these possibilities are coupled with potential social repercussions that could have negative consequences in the future.
Ultimately, designer babies represent great potential in the field of medicine and scientific research, but there remain many ethical questions that need to be addressed. Keywords: Reproductive rights , Genetic engineering , Eugenics. Ethics of Designer Babies A designer baby is a baby genetically engineered in vitro for specially selected traits, which can vary from lowered disease-risk to gender selection. Sources Agar, Nicholas. American Institute of Biological Sciences.
Annas, George. Kitcher, Philip.
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