Although it may be a touchy or a taboo topic, the idea of genetically engineering babies isn’t actually as bad as people may think and could actually be a big benefit.
Pretty soon, technology will be taking over the world and sooner or later you’ll be given the power to ensure that you will have a healthy baby, and you may not have to worry about it being at risk of illnesses that may run in the family.
Chinese scientist He Jiankui of the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China, claimed on Nov. 26 that he has edited a disease causing gene mutation in human embryos, which makes him the first man to have potentially created gene-edited babies.
This controversial idea would benefit the LGBTQ community, women who are infertile and babies who are born with predisposed diseases, in other words babies would be free of illnesses that would otherwise be inherited through family genes.
Are genetically engineered babies the new thing for couples?
LGBTQ couples often have the option of adopting or paying for a surrogate, but in this case, this could let the parents combine their genes and create a baby that is related to both parents.
Some women are born with diminished ovarian reserves, which occurs when a woman’s ovaries lose their reproductive potential, making it almost impossible to conceive a baby.
There are currently women and men who have inherited illnesses or certain cancers, this technology would help stop in advance by having them removed from the baby’s genetic make up entirely.
Genetically engineering babies should not be permitted when couples only have the intent to genetically modify babies cosmetically.
For example, a couple who both have brown colored eyes go into a doctor’s office to see whether they can genetically modify their baby to be born with blue eyes and blonde hair.
This isn’t Build-A-Baby where you can pick and choose your baby’s facial structure, eye colors or hair color.
It would be ethically and morally wrong to cosmetically alter babies into this certain expectation of perfection, or into their parents’ aesthetic desires.
Focus on the benefits of these advances will have in making babies in the future healthier and happy families, and forget about picking out the colors of the child’s hair or eyes.
If you think that you would love your child any less if they were born with black hair and brown eyes then you need to reevaluate whether or not you’re actually ready to have children or if you should even have any at all.
When someone has a child they are meant to love that child unconditionally, regardless of their physical appearance.
Although genetically engineering human embryos is banned here in the United States hopefully the U.S Government could create an ethical way of allowing human embryos to be genetically altered to get rid of family inherited diseases, help the LGBTQ community, and women who are infertile.
Don’t have kids just to be superficial, it is important to make that very clear when talking about genetically engineered babies.
It’s heartbreaking for a parent to lose a child, the pain a parent must feel when a child suffers from or dies from an illness that was passed down genetically is unimaginable.
What’s important in life is that your child is happy and healthy and there are parents out there who would do anything in there power to make sure their children are safe and well.
So for someone to come out and use a potentially life saving procedure, and use it so that their baby will fit their desired look like some kind of designer accessory is disrespectful and wrong.
Many countries and families could really take advantage of this type of technology and the opportunities of having a healthy family would be tremendous in countries where infant mortality is high due to inherited family genetics.
