Westlake Word

When you hear the words designer babies, you may think of babies wearing designer clothing, but the reality is nothing like that. Scientists are using an extremely effective type of gene modification called CRISPR. CRISPR takes genes and modifies them any way you want them; it is like an editor editing a book.

 

Designer babies can have whatever traits you want. Your baby could become immune to one of the thousands of strands of the flu or AIDS, or even human immunodeficiency virus (HPV). You could practically turn your baby into a superhuman.

 

Recently in China, a scientist named He Jiankui modified the genes in a human embryo of twin girls using the genetic engineering technique known as CRISPR. There has been quite a bit of controversy over the ethical issues with Jiankui’s experiment.

 

According to Carly Stern, reporter for OZY, the twin girls, Lulu and Nana, were born happy and healthy in China; their father, Mark, has HIV himself and he wanted a better life for his daughters and was excited about this opportunity. He Jiankui plans to monitor the twins for the first 18 years of their life. But, what about the rest of their life? Something could go wrong.

 

Over time, a mutation could occur that could lead to decades of problems. Not only could this happen, since the babies were in vitro fertilization (IVF) babies, they are already more prone to different diseases and they are more likely to have a mutation. But, is it safe?

 

Stern reports that CRISPR is a fairly new type of genetic engineering. CRISPR uses the Cas9 enzyme to edit the genome and code for desirable traits, she continues.

 

Some people say it is unnatural and/or that it is messing with human evolution. It all goes back to Darwin and his theories. Darwin’s most famous theory, survival of the fittest, claims that organisms with favorable traits will pass those traits onto their offspring. But with this, your baby can have whatever traits you want, and you do not have to wait for a random mutation. You could practically turn your baby into a superhuman.

 

But do the ethical offenses outweigh its benefits?

 

Genetically modifying babies is not truly evolution and the benefits of it do not outweigh the ethical offense. Evolution is supposed to happen due to random mutations and the one that is beneficial and present in the gametes, sex cells, that get passed on, not because someone in a lab edited a DNA sequence so your baby could have whatever eye color you want.

 

Ethically speaking, there are many concerns with modifying the genome because there is always the possibility something could go horribly wrong, this is true for everything though. But giving them the benefit of the doubt, it could be quite helpful in suppressing diseases, and it may even extend the lifespan of humans, no need to make telomeres longer. Our children are the future, and with this, they could have traits that would land them on the front cover of any magazine.

 

However, not everything is picture perfect when talking about modifying the human genome. When you pause the picture of perfection that has been painted by the benefits, when the human genome is modified, only the embryo is modified so the person carrying the child will not have any of the beneficial effects of the modification.

 

Additionally, it is quite costly and genetically modifying people to become immune to certain disease will not stop a pandemic, it would hardly suppress it. CRISPR is also such a new technique and scientists are still not fully aware of the negative side effects, such as disadvantageous mutations or rare disorders.

 

There are other and much safer ways scientists could conduct an experiment such as this one. For instance, scientists can use rats or smaller organisms that are less complex and have shorter lifespans. This was, the genetically modified organism can be exposed to whatever virus or disease they are trying to change. It is also easier to keep a close eye on a rat, rather than a human.

 

Over time, technology is going to keep getting better and better. So, maybe one day in the future scientists will be able to find a way that is not only ethically and morally okay, but safe as well.

 

But in reality, humans are not perfect, and scientists can modify every strand of DNA in every chromosome in someone’s body so they are immune to every disease, virus, or hereditary disorder possible, but they will still not be perfect. Perfection is just a picture we paint in our heads of how we want things to be; choosing what traits we want our children to have will not make this picture real.

 

Work Cited:

Stern, Carly. “Meet the Chinese Researcher Behind ‘The World’s First Designer Babies.’” OZY, OZY Media, 2018, www.ozy.com/need-to-know/meet-the-chinese-researcher-behind-the-worlds-first-designer-babies/90908.