Hey Everyone,
Welcome to my Current Affairs Journal! This project is
certainly going to be a time-consuming challenge, but I hope you will find at
least something interesting about it. I chose the highly controversial topic of
Designer Babies for my Current Affairs Journal simply because I have always
been particularly interested in the advanced technology that is used to
“design” a baby outside the mother’s body.
So, as I started reading through some articles on the
topic, I realized that even though most of us are somewhat familiar with this
growing trend of designer babies, there is far more to it than we are aware of.
Did you know that the concept of designer babies make the social as well as the
scientific world fear for the future? Isn’t it supposed to be providing
infertile couples with the chance of a healthy child, nothing more? How much
effort is put into the procedure and how refined is the technology?
Nowadays, advanced reproductive technologies such as
in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and a procedure known as preimplantation genetic
diagnosis (PGD) allow doctors to genetically modify embryos and thereby reduce
the chances of genetic disorders, creating ‘Designer Babies’. While the
idea of genetically engineered embryos was primarily intended for infertile couples to select embryos
with healthy genes, it is now feared that it will not be long until people will
eventually desire to preselect specified traits so that their children can turn
out to be impeccable. Selecting the gender of a child is already possible due
to the fact that only the X or Y chromosome needs to be identified; however,
other traits are more difficult due to the amount of genetic material required.
Recent studies showed that every single chromosome in an embryo can be scanned
for genes involved in anything from Down Syndrome to lactose intolerance using
a single microchip. The question arises: how advanced is this and what are the
ethics behind this?
As mentioned in the beginning of the post, there is indeed
a good deal to write about. I am looking forward to elaborating these questions
in my following posts as well as to discussing the laws behind designer babies,
the exact techniques and new developments.
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