Your next BABY might be exactly how you want it to be .... genetically.

Explore the possibilities of having a 'perfect' genetically built baby with Shalaba.

---

Designer babies is a term used to refer to babies that went through the ‘pre- implantation process’ as an embryo to have a certain set of genes, usually for medical reasons. This article not only explores the hopes of the medical research community and potential political and social hazards, but the ethics of such a concept that has already become a reality.

Adam Nash is the first known designer baby of the world. He was genetically selected by doctors so that he could save the life of his sister suffering from Fanconi’s Anemia. His parents were able to conceive naturally, but their sperms and eggs were genetically manipulated to create 15 different embryos. The embryo that did not contain the gene for Fanconi’s Anemia was selected so that in the future Adam could be a potential donor to his sister.

“The blood transfusion from Adam doubled the life expectancy of his sister”  :- The Guardian

If a life was saved then what's the concern?

Though Adam’s case doesn’t blur many ethical lines, there are a few communities like the Catholic Church that argue that a child must be brought into this world naturally and for the sole purpose of living for their own life. Adam was birthed to save his sister specifically, and many take up issue with that fact.

But the majority of the furious debates were focused on one particular aspect of the Pre-Implantation Process, which was parents being able to choose desirable traits like intelligence, athletic ability, physical attributes like eye color, skin color, height and ‘desirable’ features. The rich could buy the ‘perfect’ offspring, resulting in a wider gap between the wealthy and the common class.

Humanity has been obsessed with elitism for centuries, most of our historical records are evidence to that statement. Hence a medical procedure that allows one to create a perfect offspring should and has rung many alarm bells.

Despite the possible dystopian view many people came up with, there are many supporters in favor of developing the technique of the procedure so as to pave the way to saving lives of patients with serious conditions like Adam’s sister. Many people suffer from serious conditions that can be bettered if they had access to viable donors for healthy blood and stem cells. Such donors are veryuncommon and sibling donors have a higher chance of being accepted into the body for a transfusion. Hence there is an active initiative to discard the word “designer babies” and call them Savior Siblings instead.

A premiere bioethics group in UK said that germ-line gene editing was acceptable as long as nodisadvantage, harm or discrimination came about. The FDA has also accepted gene editing to weed out serious genetic disorders with very strict regulation and parameters to allow only a small subset of cases to be party to the procedure. Licenses are given on a case by case basis after thorough checking. This does not strike as unreasonable, given how fatally it could create divisions in society without strict bounds.

Considering the results of genetically engineered babies and the scope of research currently, gene editing could successfully curb many life threatening genetic diseases if it is carefully monitored and regulated by an ethics board. The discovery has huge potential for the medical community, but if not used prudently, it might just set the stage for another era similar to that of the holocaust.

---

Written By Shalabha, Edited by Nandini Nalam