Designer Babies

What is a Designer Baby?

A designer baby is a baby genetically engineered in vitro for special selected traits, which can vary from lowered disease-risk to gender selection.

In the future, this could mean the inclusions of other traits such as eye color, hair color, athleticism or height

How do you make a Designer Baby?

Two Legal Forms:

Choosing the type of sperm (xx, xy) to determine the sex and genes of the baby

Screen the embryos for genetic disorders. Then selected healthy embryos are implanted (Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis)

Most techniques involve InVitro Fertilization

Who has Designer Babies?

Parents who are concerned with their medical histories or previous children’s illnesses

Couples who have the privilege to ‘balance’ their families

Balancing a family is when a couple already has one or more children of a certain sex, for instance all boys, and want their next child to be the opposite sex, a girl.

This is very expensive

Cost of a Designer Baby

Different pathways to arrive at a designer baby

1st ($2,500): Figuring out the sex based on a sperm donation but this does not include InVitro Fertilization. If IVF is required it can become a lot more expensive.

2nd ($20,000): To harvest and freeze eggs (usually around 30) earlier in a woman’s life.

Then to fertilize her egg using IVF with her husbands/partners sperm and screen the embryo for disease before it is implanted into the uterus.

($10,00-$15,000) per each treatment

Ex: Three children via this method = $65,000

Why do people want a Designer Baby?

Preventing genetic disease

Primarily aesthetic reasons

Single mothers/sperm banks

Ethics

Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs deems unethical

Social Division

Possible Neoeugenics

Future

Future advancement in reproductive procedures

Being able to fix unhealthy DNA in an embryo instead of searching for a perfectly naturally healthy embryo

Being able to create an embryo with the exact aesthetic traits as a couple wishes.

Creating Baby

Citations

www.thegardian.com/science/2004/jul/22/sciencenews.health3

www.cbsnews.com/news/choosing-your-babys-gender/

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=designer+babies&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C39&as_sdtp=

www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/07/designer-babies-are-only-for-the-rich.html

http://embryo.asu.edu/pages/ethics-designer-babies

www.bionetonline.org/english/content/db_cont1.htm