Designer Babies

The technologies are going to be accessible to affluent couples and would be used in ways that could increase inequality. The last thing we need now is a genetic elite - Richard Hayes

Designer Babies
Designer Babies

image by: Rasmus Svinding

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Designer Babies, Technophobia and Scientific Responsibility

The term itself smacks of both haute couture and dystopian horror, a likely foreshadowing of the combination of popularity and controversy to come. "Designer babies," they're being called, and they're coming to a womb near you.

The term designer babies dates back at least as far as the turn of the millennium, when bioethics professor Glenn McGee, author of The Perfect Baby: A Pragmatic Approach to Genetics, addressed an array of looming biotechnology-based controversies.

But the writing was on the wall much earlier. Debates about eugenics began over a century earlier (long before the Nazis got a hold of the idea). Then came the discovery and increasingly better understanding…

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 Designer Babies, Technophobia and Scientific Responsibility

Throughout history any advancement seen as altering "the natural way of things" has met with fear and resistance. Is the advent of "designer babies" just what's next in this tradition, or is there legitimate cause for concern over this and related developments?

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