In China there was a scientist by the name of He Jiankui,and he was the first scientist to successfully alter and embryo. These resulted in the mother having healthy twins but these two babies are genetically altered. The twins, due to He Jiankui, are now immune to the disease of HIV (The Washington Post). This process is known as gene therapy, which is editing cells to cure disease but could this lead to the production of designer babies?
The majority of scientists think that gene editing has many red flags. To begin with they say it is ethically immoral. The United States has an interesting stand on the issue, Francis Collins says, “the director of the National Institutes of Health, issued a statement supporting the call for a moratorium and a governing body, and in an interview with The Washington Post, he made clear that this is the U.S. government position, discussed and cleared at the highest levels” (The Washington post). This is an interesting quote that goes against the majority of scientists and ethic professors.
Designer babies is defined as a baby developing from an embryo created by in-vitriol fertilization and selected because it had or lacked particular genes, the genetic makeup often having been modified by genetic engineering according to dictionary.com. As a result, people began to assume that genetic tweaking was used to create the perfect baby. But this was not the reason they created genetic modification. The true purpose for genetic modification was to remove disease causing mutations. In contrast, Elaine Gordon said that, "One day you'll be able to select for sex, hair color, confidence index, whether they are an optimist or pessimist, whether they are an athlete or a bookworm." She said that the average cost for the perfect baby would be $100,000.
Designer babies to start were a great creation that had a purposeful meaning to start. As time went on, people began to realize that they could customize their own children, and that’s when a line has to be drawn. Everybody is different, and that’s what makes everybody special. Some people are nerds and others superstars. If parents are eventually allowed to customize their children, Captain America will become a real thing. Although this is not an actual procedure, in the near future it could become one. Scientists are saying that is not ethical yet to modify the genes because they are not 100 perfect if it will work. In the end, if this procedure is used to get rid of disease causing mutations and nothing more, then the world will be a better place.