You have a chiseled aristocratic nose that you would like to pass on to your child, and your partner's eyes are so beautiful that you want your daughter to have the same ones. Until recently, these were just dreams. But now they have become a reality. Yes, thanks to the development of technology, you can not only dream about something, but also make your dreams come true!
If you are not familiar with the term "designer child", and you are curious to learn more, or if you are already thinking about having such a baby, read this post.
What is a Designer Kids
A design child is a child created through genetic screening or a process of genetic modification. Genetic modification is a process in which a particular technology or set of technologies helps to modify the genetic makeup of cells. It also involves the transfer of genes to create opportunities for genetic "makeup."
In some cases, the embryo is first screened before implantation into the body, or other methods of gene therapy help create the desired set of characteristics in the child.
Facts About Designer Kids
Here are a few things you should know:
- Most parents who want to have a designer child want to save their future baby from various diseases that can be prevented in this way. The most common diseases that parents fear in the first place are cancer, blindness, mental illness;
- 1 out of 10 people who prefer to have a designer child would like to improve their child’s overall intelligence and growth;
- 3 out of 10 people who prefer to have a designer child would like to make their children immortal.
- 32% of people who prefer to have a designer child want to do this in the hope that they will be able to prevent various health problems in their children;
- Countries such as India, China and the UK do not support the process of creating designer children and in fact declared it illegal;
- Technology that helps create designer children is not one hundred percent safe. At the moment it is still at an experimental stage, it needs to be finalized and tested;
- If the process of creating a designer child is performed improperly, it can lead to the accidental death of a child;
- In many cases, parents prefer to have a designer child only in order to change the external characteristics of the child. Many parents prefer this technique only to get a certain look, for example, to have a child with blond hair or blue eyes;
- There is an opinion that the creation of designer children-designers can lead to disagreement in a society where children born in the usual way will have a noticeable difference compared with the babies of the “designer series”. After all, children with edited genes may look better, think better, or even have less chance of getting sick.
A set of possible changes common for Designer Kids:
Here are some of the most common traits you can change if you want to have a designer baby:
- Child sex;
- Appearance of the child;
- Reduce the chances of the child getting sick or contracting an infection;
- Change the overall characteristics of the child's personality;
- Change and improve the overall level of intelligence of the child.
Advantages of genetic modifications of embryos:
- Increases overall life expectancy.
If you use the genetic change technique to create a designer child, this can increase your child’s total life expectancy by a total of 30 years.
When you create a designer child, you immediately abandon the defective genes of your unborn child and save only healthy genes. As a result, your child will grow up to be a healthier person than babies, who may have a combination of both defective and healthy genes.
After most medical problems are resolved and excluded from your child’s genotype, this will automatically improve your child’s overall condition and help increase his life cycle.
- Reduces the chances of various genetic disorders:
If you use the method of genetic modification to create a designer child, it will help reduce the likelihood of various genetic disorders in him.
Here is just a small list of genetic disorders that can be affected:
- Alzheimer's Disease: It is a genetic condition that can affect memory, as well as the thinking process.
- Down syndrome: This is a type of genetic condition in which a child is born with certain very pronounced physical characteristics, as well as with a certain amount of cognitive disorders.
- Spinal muscular atrophy: This is a type of genetic condition in which muscle contractions are affected.
- Huntington's Disease: This is a type of genetic condition that adversely affects muscle movement and coordination. It also leads to a decrease in mental abilities, as well as the loss of behavioral models, etc.
- In many cases, this is not only a real opportunity to reduce your child’s chances for genetic diseases, but also a way to increase your child’s chances of survival.
- Reduces the likelihood of transmission of hereditary diseases:
- The concept of a designer child significantly reduces your baby’s chances of being affected by various hereditary diseases. Such conditions include obesity, diabetes, anemia, cancer, and more.
- In many cases, it is not only a means of reducing the chances of your child being exposed to certain health problems, but also a way to increase your child’s chances of survival.
- Provides the opportunity for medical workers to make the right decision in a timely manner in case of need for medical care
- When you decide to create a designer child, you, having a map of genetic modifications made, help various medical services to better understand the situation that requires medical intervention.
- In turn, the creation of a designer child will significantly enrich the practical experience of various biologists and genealogists who are directly involved in this process.
- A positive effect on the future of the child:
- If you have a designer child, this means that you can help him achieve success in many areas of life in the future.
- Some aspects of your child’s life that you can undoubtedly have a positive effect on are health, intelligence, appearance, and more.
Cons of genetic modification of embryos:
- Ethical and moral aspects
- In the process of genetic modification, due to which a designer child appears, you choose only “good” qualities, and exclude “bad” ones. Opponents of the concept of designer children believe that such selectivity is almost the same as abortion.
- There are cases when parents decide to design a child only for the sake of using stem cells that they use either for themselves or for sale. After the birth of such a child, the parents take the necessary cells and throw the baby, condemning it at best to adoption.
- Violation of the rights of your child:
- When you begin the process of creating a designer child, you change forever the life and mentality of a living person without asking him for permission.
- You can make this decision even with the best of intentions and spiritual impulse, but ultimately you change the destiny of a person forever, leaving him no choice.
- In order to achieve these goals, your child will be used as a tool or object of a scientific experiment, but will not be treated as a person.
- Not without errors:
- The technology of genetic modification for the creation of designer children is still at the stage of early development, which means that it is still at the experimental stage and it needs more time to progress. This method is also not one hundred percent safe, and although born-born designer children live a happy and healthy life, much remains to be done. Since the process is still going through a phase of experimental research, scientists cannot yet say with certainty how a designer child will affect the family tree in the future.
- In addition, genetics are not always one hundred percent free from errors, which means that it is very likely that some kind of error may occur in the future. For example, the same gene that controls your child’s intelligence level can also control anger. So, if you decide to save this particular gene, it will mean that your child can be extremely smart, but at the same time extremely hot-tempered and irritable.
- Scientists also believe that, although they will do everything possible to eradicate the possibility of any disease in a child when genes are modified, an accidental mistake can lead to the emergence of a new form of the disease that they simply won’t know how to treat.
Some scientists and sociologists believe that the creation of designer children can lead to the emergence of a superior race, which will be superior to ordinary people, which will inevitably lead to a dystopic world, and, consequently, to a catastrophe. Creating such a race of superior and genetically modified people will also have a big impact on the entire human gene pool, and in this case many of the basic characteristics of a person can be threatened with destruction. Instead of the human brain and body evolving through mutation and natural selection, science and technology will take on this responsibility.
Based on MIT Technology Review