A new pro-life battle: designer babies
- Mar 17, 2009 - 1 -
Medical science has ushered in a brave new world in childbearing. A fertility clinic in Los Angeles recently announced it was ready to offer would-be parents designer babies.
L.A. Fertility Institutes, which currently screens embryos for certain diseases and offers gender selection services, put the word out it expected a “trait-selected” baby to be born next year. Dr. Jeff Steinberg, who runs the clinic, was a pioneer of in-vitro fertilization in the 1970s. He dubbed his trait-selection service “cosmetic medicine.” But this is not a face lift! It’s playing God.
Dr. Steinberg has his critics in the fertility community. British fertility expert Dr. Gillian Lockwood warns against “turning babies into commodities you buy off the shelf.” At first, Dr. Steinberg deflected the ethical arguments, saying “It’s time for everyone to pull their heads out of the sand.” His clinic’s Web site advertised opportunities for parents to make “a pre-selected choice of gender, eye color, hair color and complexion, along with screening for potentially lethal diseases.”
This announcement drew so much publicity and criticism that the clinic has pulled back. Its Web site now says the clinic has suspended its “eye and hair color program.”
The technology to pre-select the characteristics of one’s offspring has been around since the 1990s, but most doctors are squeamish about treating babies as commodities. It’s time we drew some ethical lines, because the technology is getting away from us. This process was developed to ensure parents that their babies don’t inherit life-threatening genetic diseases. Then fertility experts began to screen for quality-of-life-diminishing disorders like blindness, deafness or mental retardation. Now there’s this possibility for gender and trait selection. The technique for all of this is called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD. It’s described in a widely-circulated Wall Street Journal article entitled “A Baby Please. Blond, Freckles—Hold the Colic” (2/12/09). Here’s how it works: A woman’s eggs are fertilized with sperm in a lab. A cell is then removed from each embryo and tested for a certain genetic disease, gender and the biomarkers associated with the desired traits. Embryos free of the disease, or holding the desired traits, are implanted in the mother’s womb.
As with all in-vitro fertilization, there’s an ethical dilemma: What happens to the spare embryos? The ones carrying diseases or disorders are likely to be discarded. The Wall Street Journal’s hypothetical baby is female with green eyes and blond hair. So what does a couple do with their brown-eyed brunette male embryo? Discard him? Freeze the embryo, hoping someone who prefers those qualities will adopt him?
There are people ready to take advantage of this “trait selection” service. Several signed up for Dr. Steinberg’s services. And gender selection is in full swing in this country. Infertility specialist Daniel Potter says the top reason American women pursue high-tech gender selection is “the unrequited longing for a baby girl.”
Some countries, like the UK, ban sex selection. Not the U.S. Two congressmen, Trent Franks (AZ) and Jeff Fortenberry (NE), introduced a bill last year that would prohibit discrimination against the unborn on the basis of sex or race. So far, there’s been no action on it. Congress ought to take this up, and add a ban on trait selection. The war to protect the sanctity of human life has a new battlefront.
Penna Dexter is a conservative activist and frequent panelist on “Point of View” syndicated radio program. Her weekly commentaries air on the Bott and Moody Radio Networks. She also serves as a consultant for KMA Direct Communications in Plano, Texas.
The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission works to protect the sanctity of human life. If you would like to learn more about this issue, additional resources are available here. If your church is interested in purchasing bulletin inserts or other materials on the sanctity of human life, please visit our online bookstore and erlc.com.
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1 On Apr 17th, 2009, at 7:47am, alex wrote:
i think that a baby should be loved no matter what the baby becomes.therefore i think that it is completely wrong to make a baby what you want it to be. you should let your child become whatever it wants and love the baby for what it is.