Designer Babies: The Fertility Institutes: Ethical Analysis

Dignity is our inherent value and worth as human beings. The Designer Babies: The Fertility Institutes is one of the cases, which demonstrate how new technologies can challenge the notions of human dignity. During the human history, the newborn child’s gender has been a surprise. Today, as a result of developing new technologies, parents can know the gender of their unborn baby and also can chose the child’s gender before to be implanted in the womb. Technologies as Vitro fertilization and testing the embryos for abnormalities are the most controversial movement for reproductive freedom in our days. Using Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis for non-medical purposes can be a violation of ethical and moral practices. The question is why so many parents pay thousands of dollars in order to chose their child’s gender. Although there are rational answers, still the question is whether they are ethical or not. At the beginning, PGD was accepted as an ethical procedure because it was
trying to identify and prevent sex-linked disorders in children. This technology allows families with gender-linked diseases to stop conceiving a child with serious illness. Based on Utilitarian approach, which says that ethical actions produce “ the greatest good for the greatest number”, the use of PGD is an ethical practice. According to this theory the ethical actions are judged based on the consequences of these actions, not the intuitions. So it is not about self-interest, it is the overall interest of humanity. In our case, using the PDG for medical reason creates the best consequences for all of humanity. The good consequences are that only fewer children are born with serious illnesses. We also can use the Utilitarian approach to justify the use of PGD for non-medical reason, as it would make many parents happy and will help with family balancing. In other words we can say that families, which have already one or more children of one sex, want to choose the gender of next child to “balance” the gender ratio in their family, based on the reason that children that come from the families with both genders will be better for society. On the other hand there are many concerns and consequences of PGD on natural selection.
One of the problem associated with the use of PGD become visible when considering how many detrimental impacts this human interventions has on the whole society. If we consider the rights-based approach to ethics, every person has dignity originate in their human nature. Also each child has a dignity, which must be preserved. Using PGD for non-medical purpose creates morally undesirable values. Paying for “designer baby”, market children as a product of our society. Doing this will dehumaniz their character and will harm their dignity. People cannot treat their unborn children the same as they treat their houses or cars. Children are not built to fit a specific dream of their parents. The new technologies allowed humans to have the choice how to live their lives, but in the case of designer babies and gender selection allows people to make an unethical choice about unborn child’s
life. In my opinion having a child must be a natural phenomenon and should stay that way for many good reasons. The human society must not intervene in the natural process of childbirth.