Designer Babies, Version 1.0

Stickerboy writes: "A 30 year-old woman in Chicago gave birth to a pre-pregnancy genetically screened and selected baby 17 months ago, which is being reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association today. Doctors at the Reproductive Genetics Institute in Chicago took 23 eggs from her, screened the eggs for a gene that causes an early form of Alzheimer's, and then fertilized and implanted the eggs back in her womb. Shades of the movie Gattaca - this is a good specific development, but the start of a very controversial trend. Read more about it in the Washington Post or read the abstract in JAMA."

Comments

Screening != GM

[Bonker]

All doctors did was select an unaltered embryo that had a better chance of developing into a healthy adult. They didn't change the embryo in any way, nor did they give any advantage to the mother or embryo.

Some doctors encourage people who are at risk of genetically transmitted diseases to have their unborn fetuses screened for those same diseases so that they have the option of aborting early in the pregnancy.

This merely takes that practice a step further, while eliminating the controversy of abortion.

Natural Selection?

[Em Emalb]

From the article:
"Without the screening, the newborn would have faced fifty-fifty odds of becoming hopelessly senile by the time she was 40."

This is a terrible thing. I am really sorry to hear that this *might* happen by the time she/he is 40.

Well, IMO, this goes against natural selection. Weaknesses are inherent in all forms of life. And in this case, the weakness is basically being forced out of the child. I don't think this is a good thing, and here is why...

What happens when the governments start screening every child that is born for any inherent form of "weakness"? Will those children never receive the chance to live? Will they be branded "inferior"? This has the potential to be an extremely bad thing.

If you want a child so badly, lady, go ADOPT ONE.

There are literally thousands of unwanted children out there that need and want a family.

What is so wrong about going this route as opposed to paying thousands for a procedure like this? You help a child already alive, and more importantly, you give that child a chance to have a better life, and that is what it's all about.

of course, this is my opinion, and I am sure I will be slammed most heartily....

*cracks open a beer and waits*

Re:Natural Selection?

[xSterbenx]

Well, IMO, this goes against natural selection. Weaknesses are inherent in all forms of life. And in this case, the weakness is basically being forced out of the child. I don't think this is a good thing, and here is why...

I can't disagree more. The point of natural selection is that some organisms are more prone to survival than others, and for the most part this increase in survival is due to a genetic mutation which somehow made the organism more 'fit' to survive. By screening for 'unfit' genes, we are actually performing natural selection ourselves, instead of relying on random chance mutations which more often than not lead to 'unfit' phenotypes.

Besides, when was the last time natural selection was really evident in humans? We take care of our sick, our unhealthy, those of us who cannot survive on their own. According to natural selection, we should not give charity, should not have nursing homes, should not really do anything that does not benefit ourselves. IMO, applying natural selection to humans is wrong in any case.

Re:Natural Selection?

[gehrehmee]

Weaknesses are inherent in all forms of life.

Furthermore... weaknesses are one of the things that define us. If I was more physically adept, for example, I would have certainly been more likely to have focused on that element of my life as a child. Instead, I found that I, socially, was very different from the people around me. That forced me to seek out and use my other strengths, and make them a more important part of who I am. I sought out different peer groups, different friends. My family's different because I'm different...

I think when you really consider it, our weaknesses are as much a contributing factor in who we are and who we will be as our strengths. And I believe any attempt to fiddle with that is going to be detrimental, both to individuals, and to the society they go on to live in.

Re:What else can be found

[Bonker]

Not only the diseases, but when (and if) we can pre-screen for intelligence, strenght, certain characteristics, won't we be creating a 'super human-race'?

Very simply, you can't screen for most human traits. Period. Sorry, go to the back of the line.

Besides the fact that most traits are caused not by one gene, but by the interaction of dozens of genes and the proteins they create, you have to consider that almost all human traits develop in accordance to someone's environment.

Thusly, if Albert Einstein had been raised in an environment where he wasn't exposed to mathematics or the written word until he was 30 years old, he probably wouldn't come across quite as bright as he was. If he had been raised in an environment where he was not exposed to speech-- The so called 'Forbidden Expirement'-- he probably would come across as being pretty retarded.

If Michael Jordan had not had the opportunity to work hard in his youth and become athletic, he probably wouldn't be the sports superstar he is today. He couldn't just 'develop' those traits and skills later in life.

Say you're an intelligent but pudgy software engineer/couch potato type and you actually manage to get the doctors to screen embryos and sperm most likely to create an athletic individual. If the child created may have a better chance of becoming atheltic, but if he follows his parents example, he will probably be just as pudgy.

Now the one trait that you *can* screen for is gender, mostly because the relationship between X and Y chromosomes has been fairly well observed even if the science behind all the related protein interactions has not been fully plumbed yet.

This raises some scary possibilities, especially in parts of the world where reproduction is controlled by government (China) or families are encouraged to have male children. (Quite a bit of the world, actually.) Having a gender imbalance will do a number on women's rights.

Terminology beats thought

[joss]

Just using that phrase "designer babies" determines the conclusion. Put out a poll...

"are you in favor of designer babies" - no

"should potential parents with inheritable diseases have the right to pre-screen their embryos for those diseases" - yes

Then we get the "look at all the wonderful cripples like Hawkins etc...." argument. Well, the foetuses you discard have at least as much chance of turning out well as the ones you keep. There are plenty of great humans who have nasty genetic diseases, but we have no way of telling what geniuses we've missed because the lack of screening meant some doomed half-wit runt got born instead.

And while I'm ranting... Gattaca wasn't that scary. I'm in favor of a world where more people look like Uma Thurman.

Anyway, I better quit before I start proposing full scale eugenics and saying "just because Hitler gave it a bad name doesn't mean it's wrong, after all, if his policies had been implemented Hitler would never have been born in the first place..." that would ruin any credibility I have. Oh shit, too late, just kidding, but I do have a gut reaction against the "this is what nazi's wanted = bad". Decent roads and punctual transport would get discarded too with those arguments.

Personally, I have more faith in nature combining things in the right way than a bunch of fuckwit genetic engineers. But, I don't think it's fair to tell people "it's illegal for you to try and avoid having a child who dies early - I'm not comfortable with that". You know what - nobody asked you to be comfortable with it, it's none of your business.

Re:Some things are good some are bad

[stienman]

The ability to screen for these is directly related to the financial status of the person using the screening system. The poor would go the 'natural' way and subsequently become a lower class physically than families who can afford such procedures. As can be seen in every society documented or studied, physical differences lead to class tendencies. Even if it were illegal to discriminate based on some physical triat, it would happen and become the norm in many industries, pushing the lower class even lower.

Plus it require a LOT of government control and intervention to prevent such discrimination, reducing individual privacy and rights.

But we won't be around long enough to see it, so how about if we jump in with both feet and darn the consequences... We'll create a better class of geeks! Or at least ones with 6 fingers (better keyboarding) or a mousing hand or something.

-Adam

Re:The best application of science ever!

[egomaniac]

By the same token, who are we to say that your (say) twelve year old daughter's next ovum wonn't contain the best genetic material on the planet?

You're letter her *not* have sex? How dare you waste such potentially valuable genetic material? The second she gets gives birth to her first baby, make sure her boyfriend starts going for number 2. One of her fifteen kids might be the next Beethoven, after all.

I realize I'm being inflammatory, but I'm making a serious point. Every menstrual cycle wastes an egg. Every ejaculation wastes billions of sperm. I don't see a whole lot of difference between wasting them a few seconds before conception and wasting them a few seconds later.

(Yes, yes, I know that some people believe that a single cell can somehow possess an invisible, incorporeal, supernatural entity which they term a 'soul', but that theory is every bit as plausible as saying that the zygote possesses an invisible super-powerful wombat. They might, but considering there's absolutely no evidence in favor of it...)

And we *are* focusing our efforts on curing AIDs and cancer. Solving these problems does not require every single human on the planet to devote 100% of his or her effort to their solutions. That's a pretty inefficient way to operate. For that matter, what are you doing here on Slashdot? Why aren't you working on something more important?

The human race multitasks. Nobody complained about Linus Torvalds writing the Linux kernel instead of working on a cure for cancer. Why are you complaining about fertility doctors working on this rather than a cure for cancer?

I'm sure a lot of people will be pissed off by my opinions, but at least we can all agree on one thing. Super-powerful wombats would be *damned* cool.

A pretty good thing on average

[Nurf]

I think being able to adjust ourselves genetically is a good thing on average. We just have to be careful that we dont:

1) Decrease the overall genetic diversity of the population. ie. Mass produced specific genes are probably a bad idea.

2) Create people that can't mate with "normal" humans.

As long as (2) applies we are adding to the gene pool, and it think there are enough people having kids the natural way out there that (1) will be very difficult to make happen (gene-implanting virus epidemics aside).

The possibility exists that a modification could be made that ends up having bad consequences for the recipient decades later. This is the nature of reality. The risk means that people will think twice before doing it, which should provide some handy negative feedback. You have to consider the probabilities.

Would I be willing to make this choice for my offspring? Yes. I indirectly make this choice by picking a mate anyway. I won't make a choice carelessly, and I would only do it if I saw real benefit for my kids. Many choices you make in your lifetime have a significant impact on those around you. It's the nature of life, rather than the nature of this particular problem.

For those that would point out that my children would bear the lifelong burden of my choices, I agree and say "So what?". It would be one of many such choices, and I feel no moral qualms about making them. It is my responsibility to do so.

Just to be clear, I know we are currently in the "remove things we know to be bad" stage rather than the "designer water-breathing" gene stage. I'm just looking ahead a bit.

I find most of the complaints against this sort of thing to be in the gut-feeling-looking-for-a-pseudo-logical-argument category. The remainder have so far made points that haven't convinced me.

Give it time.

[Spamalamadingdong]

Very simply, you can't screen for most human traits. Period. Sorry, go to the back of the line.

Yet. The number of tests is going up rapidly.

The real difficulty you're going to have is that the number of usable gametes you're going to get falls exponentially with the number of chromosomes you're trying to select for. After you get to four or five traits you've got a choice: either you're going to have to be able to pick individual chromosomes and build custom nuclei, or you're going to have to select a "best-of-N" instead of a pure optimum. The "best-of-N" preserves large elements of chance.

Besides the fact that most traits are caused not by one gene, but by the interaction of dozens of genes and the proteins they create, you have to consider that almost all human traits develop in accordance to someone's environment.

This is still not bad. If it gives parents a shot at having a child who'll do best in their environment, or allows parents the knowledge that their child will do best if they provide a certain environment, it's all for the better. The same tests which show what environmental influences are best will help children who aren't specifically selected for certain traits to get the best out of what they've got. This is coming whether you want it or not; the technology is essential to tell what drugs will benefit individuals and what side effects they might have, and the other knowledge will follow behind it. Soon we are going to have the knowledge once reserved to deities, whether we want it or not; we had better be prepared to act on it humanely.

Playing God?

[clary]

The problem with this assumption is that you don't know what other things you're screening out when you screen out the disease. A somewhat contrived example of this is Stephen Hawking. Of course no really knows the cause of ALS, but suppose it turns out to be genetic. Stephen Hawking would have been screened out of existance, and consequently all of his contributions to science.

IMHO, by doing this kind of thing, we pretend that we are God and that we can forsee every possible future. In my opinion, this is foolishness. We are too focused on our inconveniences, and spend too much effort in the avoidance of struggle. We almost universally fail to see the good that can come out of those struggles.

This is no more playing God than deciding whether to have a child or not in the first place. If Hawking's parents had not had children, then he would not have contributed to science. All our choices have consequences we cannot foresee, not just the ones that use fancy new science. Get over it, and try to make the best, most ethical choices you can.

That said, there may be other good arguments against gene screening. But this one just doesn't hold water.