In some cases, changing the DNA of an unborn person is the same as changing fate and giving a chance for a happy future. Since science does not stand still, people have learned to influence DNA to a certain extent. To date, the idea of “designer babies,” which claims that it is possible to alter the genes of the embryo, carrying out specific genetic manipulations, is becoming pretty popular but needs to be explored more.
The opportunity to alter DNA is an excellent step toward the development of science, but it should be used carefully. While nature “has a marvelous mechanism to ensure that each human life has an identical number of chromosomes” and is unique, genetic changes should be utilized only in urgent situations (Belsky, 2015, p. 38). Genetic manipulations are a good idea for two profound reasons: a child’s abnormality or disease. The bioethicist Kevin Smith claims: “if several disorders could be avoided or delayed by genetically modifying humans, the average disease-free lifespan could be substantially extended” (as cited in Guy, 2019, para. 9). Other factors, such as parents’ wish to have a blue-eyed child or a boy instead of a girl, have ethical implications: those manipulations are intervention into the lives of minors and can damage the embryo. The altering DNA for such reasons should hardly be admissible. Therefore, a significant gap lies between the desire to choose the child’s sex or eye color and the striving to save the life or prevent the disease.
The idea of “designer babies” can hardly be evaluated as exclusively positive or negative. On the one hand, it indicates the development of genetics and contributes to the destruction of some diseases a child could suffer. On the other hand, the idea of designing unborn humans in the same way that technologists create computer machines seems unnatural. Therefore, in several cases, the manipulations with genes are indispensable and can bring extraordinary benefit, but in other situations, perhaps it would be better to entrust this matter to nature.
References
Belsky, J. (2015). Experiencing the lifespan (4th ed.). Worth Publishers.
Guy, J. (2019). ‘Designer babies’ could be just two years away, expert claims. CNN International. Web.