Can anyone fill in my survey on "designer babies" please?

http://kwiksurveys.com/app/rendersurvey.asp?sid=ggmh0ok97n7u6q4395403&refer=

Also anyone have any strong opinions they wish to share?

Personally I think designer babies are a positive thing if regulated, just to get rid of certain genetic diseases!

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 1

Zorgotron

I don't know, it's a hard topic. Designing babies reduces their inherent human worth and turns them into nothing more than commissioned products. This will commercialize human life, which I consider to be unethical. Where's the limit? If it becomes possible to genetically alter to fetus to develop four arms, or more than one eye - should that be allowed? What's the moral difference between increasing the intelligence of the person and increasing the visual prowess of the person? The difference is only cosmetic.

This would also spell certain doom for any sort of egalitarianism that this forum seems to strive for - it's unlikely that this sort of genetic alteration will be available to everyone. This is something only the rich would enjoy and even then this would spell certain doom for third world countries, that will have to suffice with normal i.e inferior subjects. The creation of superior human beings will destroy any notion of equality currently known.

Reply 2

chazwomaq

A lot of the above points apply to post-partum modification too.

Richer people have access to private schools, tutors etc. Rich families read more books to their children. Does this destroy the third world too?

We modify people's visual prowess all the time through medical procedures (laser eye surgery) or non-medical ones (glasses or contact lenses).

OP: your survey is really lacking definitions of the methods of designer babies. At present, they are not selected to eradicate a particular trait. Embryos with the trait are eradicated, those without preserved.

Your second question about deciding the sex of your baby. This could be done in different ways e.g. selecting only y-sperm for artificial insemination, or through multiple embryo creation, then selection and eradication. But who knows, in the future perhaps there will be a drug that knocks out y sperm and only allows x to fertilise. Quite a different proposition.

Even choosing a particular partner, or a particular set of qualities from a sperm donor is a form of making "designer babies".

You have to spell out the methods as that is where many people's ethical issues arise, and whether you are talking about the present or a hypothetical sci-fi future. Otherwise you're survey is impossible to answer (for me at least).

(edited 9 years ago)

Done!

Original post by LouiseXxx

Finished! please return the favour with mine :https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/L657R9Q

Thank you!

Reply 5

s20100215

done! could you please help me too? Thanks!

http://www.sojump.com/jq/3668341.aspx

done

Done.

I think this is one of those things that is kind of inevitably coming and will be widely hated, but eventually will slip into being normal.

The biggest threat will be to diversity - if everyone wants the stereotyped Nordic baby that people seem to admire so much, the human race stands a good chance of being weakened to diseases. However, I suspect that there would be enough variability of what parents want that if true designer babies ever became a routine thing (and that's a big if, because presumably the science is still a heck of a long way from that, given that all the consequences of genetic manipulation have not yet been properly worked out) it would still lead to a lot of variety. For example, I can imagine parents wanting to have a family with different-looking children in it.

Pretty scary stuff though.

Reply 8

HarrietGilbraith

Done! Would you mind completing my survey too? http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2805507

Reply 9

misslissa

Original post by LouiseXxx

Done! Interesting survey.

Could you please do mine, if it asks for a SONA ID please put in any random word or number: https://greenwichuniversity.eu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_darnh5Duvq1OoEB