Pros And Cons Of In-Vitro Fertilization

Imagine walking into a doctor’s office and choosing the cosmetic features that people would like their child to obtain, this is something that would happen in choosing designer babies. In In-Vitro Fertilization, embryos can be chosen and also observed for any disease that might be there. By using karyomapping, it allows the doctors to find any genetic defect in the embryo. These are ways that society has innovated the reproductive process. Innovations in technology have led to advances in society, but has the line of nature been crossed. New innovations such as designer babies are unethical because the government does not restrict the use, social gap will increase and people will hinder God's’ creation.
The government allows the masses to
obtain limited reproductive freedom, it is logical to give the choosing of characteristics to parents that are expecting a child (Sterngrass 66). The government appears to be trying to assist the people who would like to undergo this procedure from consequences that may or may not appear in this transaction. International governments are trying to limit the use of the technology that enables experts to design patient’s babies. In 1997 in Scotland, the first cloning experiment was created on a sheep and was successful until the sheep was on its deathbed six years later (“Dolly the Sheep”). Experts say that this procedure can be safe to practice on humans, but the United States has done everything in its power to leave it out of the nation (Catalano). This new investment will cause internal conflict as well as international competition between leading countries.
This development will come at extraordinary price that few can afford (Thadani).
Thus the experts will be making a profit out of the traits as well as the procedure. As a result, it will provide an increasingly distinguishable line between the wealthy and the poor. There will be segregation between the children who have been changed to fit a criteria, also known as the superiors, and the children whose genes were not altered with, recognized as the inferiors (Thadani). Likewise, the people who cannot afford the procedure will experience shortness of opportunity in society. In theory, the genetically mutated children will be at the top of the social hierarchy. The rewarding procedure of designer babies will not only benefit the professionals conducting the experiment, but will also create a bigger distinction between the wealthy and the
poor.
Although, the intention of designer babies is to benefit the world, we must also concede that it is immoral and that in some way the boundary that nature sets is being crossed.
This operation crosses the aforementioned line by changing the genetics of a fetus to achieve a stereotypical idea of what a human should look like or should be. Some say that the experts are “playing God” and looking at a religious perspective, having a child should be a present from the higher power (Thadani). Thus if the parents of the future children try to change the child to fit a certain mold, it would technically be changing God’s, or any form of a higher power’s, intention of human life. The unethical procedure will lead society to question if the experts are “playing God” by alternating genetics to fit the the stereotypical idea of what a human should look
like.
If parents get to choose the embryos that will be given birth to, the embryos that are not used “would be destroyed and will no longer be in use” (Catalano). Corresponding to the impairing of probable lives, it is compared to the murdering of an actual life. As a result shouldn’t experts be punished for destroying unused embryos that would have resulted in a possible child? (Joey). The unethical procedure will lead society to question if the experts are “playing God” by alternating genetics and whether the technology will lead to consequences not foreseeable as of now.
Despite the lack of morals of the procedure, it is argued that, this operation could lead to the cure of diseases“by replacing faulty sections of the DNA with healthy DNA, in the process called germ line therapy,” (Steere). Some say that the germ line therapy will produce ideas for medicine that will eventually cure certain diseases. However, the germ line therapy experiment may help with the curing of diseases and stem cell research, but may lead to outbreaks of other diseases (Steere).The germ line therapy is being used in some countries now to escape the birth of female children. In India and China, the two fastest growing countries in population, both use the sex-selection abortion technology, or the removal of the female feticide. In India, each year parents terminate about five hundred thousand female fetuses. A gynecologist in New York says, “…..If it’s a boy, they keep it. If it’s a girl, they’ll abort [it],” (Sterngrass). Lastly, the question lies, that if parents do choose to get rid of the disease while the fetus is in the womb, will the child be at risk for another disease that may appear that professionals cannot cure? The professionals are only focusing on the disease that is occurring in the fetus, so when taken out, it can cause another disease to appear and may result in the initial disease to recur. As a result, the parents will file a lawsuit against the doctor for malpractice which will either terminate the doctor’s job or it will leave a dent in his career (“”Designer Babies” Ethical?”). Although the designer babies operation could ultimately cure diseases it could lead to an extinction of women and an arrival of different diseases that are caused by the procedure.
The designer baby procedure has left many questions unsolved; will it cause another disease develop? Is it “playing God”, or some kind of higher power, way of life? Will the wealthy only have this opportunity? All these questions remain unsolved, but experts say in a few years they will have results and answers. For now, the designer babies have yet to come into our lives and we cannot stop the makings of the experiment, but we can slow down the process. After all, some of the issues with designer babies can be ratified if the government takes action and limits the procedure on medical purposes only to prevent diseases, and not for cosmetic purposes.