Designer Babies the Abraham Center

Designer Babies

The Abraham Center of Life, located in San Antonio, offers a variety of standard fertility services for hopeful parents: egg donation, frozen embryos, surrogacy, and even adoption. In addition to their standard fertility and family-planning options, Abraham Center also offers a highly controversial option to clients. At Abraham Center, couples can choose their donors' "physical traits and even personality," (Blogicus 2007). Choosing donor physical and psychological traits essentially means that hopeful parents can buy a baby of their choice, picking everything from hair and eye color to skin color, height, and race. The so-called designer babies that come from such deliberate selection could in the future be created in a laboratory, as scientists understand enough about the human genetic code to possibly alter embryonic DNA for parents who want their babies to look and possibly act a certain way. The ethics of designer babies is questionable for several reasons. On the one hand, by removing random selection from the reproductive process the parents-to-be come dangerously close to practicing eugenics: a form of "demographic control" usually associated with racism (Thavis 2007). On the other hand, the ability to create designer babies could be used to reduce instances of disease in the general population or to otherwise improve quality of life for some individuals. Therefore, the issue of designer babies will become one of the most controversial issues in modern medicine.

Proponents of genetically-modified or designer babies argue their case using a number of ethical theories and points-of-view. Some proponents also support a limited use of genetic selection, basing their arguments on situational variables such as whether the designer baby was chosen for physiological health features or for aesthetic ones. For example, Woolf (2007) notes that the practice of genetic selection would allow parents to create ideal siblings: ones that share enough of the same genetic code to donate organs or blood to each other when in need. Greater control over the embryo or donor selection process could prevent some genetic diseases from manifesting, too. Some might argue that designer babies would create a more perfect society through the eventual elimination of disease, deformity, and disability: much of which is genetically-carried. Improving the quality of life of children and their parents could be construed as a moral obligation rather than an immoral act. Thus, supporters of designer baby creation argue that so long as the practice is used to improve public health, increase quality of life, and reduce instances of illness or disease, then no moral law is being broken.

The principles of utilitarianism allow the ends to justify the means. As long as an action serves the common good and achieves the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people, it can be considered morally just. In fact, utilitarianism denies the existence of absolute right or wrong ethical decisions like deontology does. Deontological ethics suggest that some acts are inherently wrong in any and all circumstances. On the contrary, utilitarianism permits ethical relativism: what works in some situations might not work in others. A utilitarian who disagreed with the practice of designer babies for eugenics could accept the practice for quality of life and health. Other defenders of designer babies rest solely on an ethical argument based on nonmalfeasance and individual rights, such as by suggesting that giving clients "what they want" is an ethical act (Blogicus). Designer babies could have improved intelligence or athletic ability, notes Ritter (2000). Proponents might claim that human beings should be able to enhance their lives and those of their children if scientific advancements permit it. Others argue that designing a baby can help parents design their whole family, balancing a first-born female with a second-born male or vice-versa (Jakubik 2007). Almost all arguments in favor of designer babies rest on utilitarian ethics, ethical relativism, or nonmalfeasance.

Opponents of the designer baby revolution abound, and argue their case using a wide range of ethical theories too. Some rest their cases on their religious values alone. For instance, the Pope has officially denounced designer babies as being contrary to Christian values (Thavis 2007). The Pope called designer babies and embryonic selection "attacks on human life," (cited by Thavis 2007). The Pope even used the word eugenics to describe the "demographic control" that designer babies entail, and called the practice overt "discrimination," (cited by Thavis, 2007). The argument that discrimination is always morally wrong is deontological: eugenics, demographic control, and discrimination are all categorically wrong. According to the deontological standpoint, genetic modification of embryos and the practice of embryo and/or donor selection are always wrong no matter what: even if the practice prevented disease. The deontological point-of-view is opposite to the utilitarian one that would permit designer babies so long as the practice created a better society. Other opponents also use deontological ethics to oppose designer babies, noting that "selling" human beings for profit is categorically wrong. The act of controlling reproduction is itself a controversial topic in religion with many religious conservatives eschewing birth control and abortion as well as designer babies. Therefore, religious conservatives who at once decry abortion but at the same time welcome the right of parents to use artificial methods of procreation like artificial insemination or embryonic selection seem like hypocrites whose ethical arguments are tenuous at best.

Interestingly, the same arguments used in favor of designer babies are being used against them. For example, advocates of designer babies note that by breeding out genetic illnesses or disabilities society will be less burdened and quality of life for all individuals including the baby and its parents will improve. By the same argument, opponents of designer babies claim that crafting society would not improve quality of life. Instead quality of life would decrease especially because individuals with ideal genes would be considered superior to those with some defects. Society would become "unequal," in a scenario similar to the one posed in the film Gattica. Designer babies also raise the issue of race- or gender-based discrimination because parents could choose the gender of their future child (Jakubik 2007).