Amanda DiMartino

Professor Mangini
English 100

Designer Babies and Society

Think of the future. Its 2035. You exit your office building onto a busy city sidewalk.
You look around and to your amazement every person is seemingly perfect. Many of them look
exactly alike. Most men you see are tall, athletic build, brown hair, blue eyes and extremely
handsome. Just about every woman is exactly the right size, 55, slender, large breasts, curved
hips and unexplainably beautiful. Every person you see is perfect, tan skin, healthy, and
intelligent. Just what science was aiming for. Designer Babies. A Designer Society. This option
of designing ones genes will affect our society in countless ways from altering the sense of
individuality to forming gaps in society and even the start of human evolution.
A designer baby is a baby whose genetic make-up has been selected in order to eradicate
a particular defect or to ensure that a particular gene is present
(http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/designer-baby?q=designer+baby).
With the introduction of designer babies, individuality will not be what it once was.
Although, every individual will have their own sense of self, each person will have so many
qualities that are so very similar to one another. Every parent will want their child to have the
best hair, the prettiest eyes, and the most athletic body. The genes for looks are not the only
genes that will be altered; therefore personality traits will also be similar. This would lead to so
many people being indistinguishable.

Designer babies will also cause a gap in society. These men and women to be thought up
by their parents as designer babies will be much better looking than those few who are not. They
will tend to be prettier, smarter, and healthier. This will lead to the formation of two social
classes, those who are designer babies or are genetically designed and those who are not or are
natural; similar to the society we have today, the haves and the have-nots. Designing a baby
costs money, and will most likely continue to cost lots of money; Genetic engineering for nonmedical reasons is not necessary for living life and it is doubtful that those who could not afford
it would get reimbursed by insurance companies. This cost will mean that not everyone will be
able to pay to design their baby, and suddenly people will encounter prejudice, not for their race,
but for their inferior genetic makeup (http://designerbabies.weebly.com/cons.html). The people
who were not genetically engineered would also experience a loss of opportunity based on a
chance that their defective genes will be displayed. In this new society, people with a 50%
chance of cancer would get passed over for a job in favor of the person with .01% chance of
cancer. That kind of social stratification can be frightening. Even if privacy laws the way they
are now stay in place and peoples genetic information is not shared, it could be obvious which
children were designed and which were not, creating the same stratification (Agar). I think that
there will be a large divide between those who have been genetically modified and those who
were not. Usually, families that are able to afford designer babies are those that are financially
well off.
Another long-term problem of designing babies comes from within societies in which one
gender or other important characteristic is favored over the other. In countries such as China
and India where boys are favored over girls this technology could be used so that every set of
parents that wants a baby boy will get one. However that is not evolutionarily favorable (Agar).

If a generation of only boys were to be made the human race would die out. The evolution of
humans has spanned about 2 million years and has resulted in the types of people we see today:
people who have imperfections and people who are very different from one another. A large
scale of organisms in a particular species is necessary for that species to continue to be
competitive with other species and be successful. By creating a generation of genetically similar
people, the human species loses its ability to adapt to changing environments (Agar). If designer
babies become a product of the future the humans that we see now will become a thing of the
past.
Many scientists say that genetic engineering can improve the health of society
tremendously(http://www.disabledworld.com/artman/publish/geneticengineering.shtml#sthash.
URTB6JnS.dpuf). This can prove to be very true, but if everyone were born with no health issues
and no imperfections, healthcare, the largest money making industry would crumble. Although
Designer Babies would help weed out some of the diseases and defects of the world, it would
have a very largely negative effect on our society. Altering the genes of humans takes away from
the natural god given ability to bear children. Strengthen your body, but respect it. Challenge
your child, but love her. Celebrate nature. Dont try to control everything
(http://pitjournal.unc.edu/article/prospect-designer-babies-it-inevitable#sthash.yeiO9bts.dpuf)

Works Cited
1. Agar, Nicholas. "Designer Babies: Ethical Considerations." Actionbioscience.org.
Apr. 2006. American Institute of Biological Sciences. 24 Mar. 2009
<http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/agar.html>.
2. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/designerbaby?q=designer+baby
3. http://www.disabledworld.com/artman/publish/geneticengineering.shtml#sthash.URT
B6JnS.dpuf
4. http://pitjournal.unc.edu/article/prospect-designer-babies-itinevitable#sthash.yeiO9bts.dpuf
5. http://designerbabies.weebly.com/cons.html
6. http://youtu.be/KWqhLH4_iaU