Choose to have a baby with a defect

[smudgeoffudge]

I found this story kind of shocking. I found it shocking that some people would actually make a baby with a defect. I'd be so mad at my parents if I found out that they choose to give me a defect like being deaf, being a dwarf, or whatever just to MAKE me like themselves or familiar to them or convenient for them.

I think it is just wrong. I can understand if such a thing should happen naturally by natural means. But to go in and purposely mess up a child is just wrong. What do you think?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/parentin ... index.html

I think people who do that are just sick.
People shouldn't be able to have "perfect" babies nor should the be able to choose to have one with a defect, I think. I think you should just get what you get, and love it, no messing around with it.

Last edited by smudgeoffudge on Sun Jan 21, 2007 2:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

[Katherine]

That is just wrong.

[smudgeoffudge]

I could understand it maybe if they used an embryo that had a defect and no one else wanted it. Sometimes people go to fertility clinics or something and sometimes they might have an embryo that has a defect. Instead of being thrown away, they might could find a nice dwarf family who wanted it. That would be ok I guess. It would be sad that the embryo's own family didn't want it, though.

I guess there are plenty of embryos sitting frozen already that people could pick from.

But to take your own embroyo and mess with it is wrong. Or to pick and choose from your embryos until you get the one YOU want, is like playing God.

I don't think people should be able to do that.


I heard on the radio that there was a clinic some place that is basically selling designer embryos. They combine the sperm and egg of two different people and they already have a "popular model". Basically they know that person A combined with sperm from person B makes a very pretty baby. So they just churn out more and more of that model.

I'd hate to find out that I was the "popular model" of kid and there were others of my brothers and sisters in the world, chosen for our pretty looks.

[Rachel]

i've heard about this before, it may have been in New scientist, i dont know. But the thing is, the deaf people dont think of themselves as defective, they simply converse in a different way to everyone else. they see it as a difference rather than a defect. so saying that they're being allowed to make "defective babies" is probably really insulting to them.

And if a deaf couple had a baby that could, they would have issues with raising it - as chances are they wouldnt be able to teach it to speak etc, and the child would always feel a bit of an outsider when the deaf parents were with the rest of their deaf community.

And on the dwarf example - it would again make it much easier for the babies to be raised by the parents - imagine if they had a normal child - they'd be smaller than their own child in not a very long time, which would make for very difficult parenting!!

they arent "designer babies" in the way you probably think they are. i havent read the whole of the article you linked, but from what i've heard about it in the past, they're not actively adding the "defective" gene to the babies - they are making a few embryos (which is what they do in IVF anyway) and selecting the ones that have the "defect". these are children that the couple could have had by chance anyway.

[pipsqueeek]

I'm not quite sure where I stand on this. The whole thing just seems kinda... off, but do think that parents who are, say, deaf should be able to raise children who are like them. I guess adoption is the way to go I would say. The whole deal of messing with unborn babies to get the one you want just seems sick.

[Rachel]

I'm not quite sure where I stand on this. The whole thing just seems kinda... off, but do think that parents who are, say, deaf should be able to raise children who are like them. I guess adoption is the way to go I would say. The whole deal of messing with unborn babies to get the one you want just seems sick.

They're not messing with unborn babies, they are doing what happens normally in IVF, but rather than simply selecting embryos that are "healthy" (ie dont have any life threatening genetic diseases or other things they screen for, eg Downs Syndrome) they are positively selecting for embryos with the deafness/dwarf gene. there is no messing.

[Runevalkyrie]

I'm afriad this is better suited as a discussion for the Debate usergroup than on the public board.