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Designer Babies, Version 1.0

Posted by michael on from the wait-till-you-see-version-7 dept.

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."

2 of 514 comments (clear)

  1. Imagine the Possibilities by e1en0r · · Score: 0, Redundant

    If only they could screen for the Trolling gene. Troll Free /. in 50 years?

  2. designer babies by I+Want+GNU! · · Score: 1, Redundant

    There are two potential uses of genetic screening before giving birth, in my opinion.

    1) Screen for potentially harmful diseases, such as Alzheimer's, and prevent them.

    2) Test for other traits such as height and eye color, etc.

    #1 is OK in my opinion, since it simply tries to prevent a person from having genetic conditions for their entire lives. #2 would be terrible if used, though, and could just create a bunch of Michael Jordans as babies. It does not save people's lives, it simply makes everyone else worse off in comparison, and is the type of thing used in Gattaca.

    I think that designer babies are ok as far as eliminating disease but could hurt genetic diversity and cause genetic elitism if used to try to get the perfect baby.