Gucci or Versace?

    

By using advanced reproductive technologies, parents and doctors are able to screen embryos for genetic disorders and select healthy embryos. As they choose and design their desirable cosmetic characteristics, the perfect baby of their dreams is born. 

IVF, short for InVitro Fertilisation, is a technology that is able to preselect certain baby genes. It is most often used to overcome a variety of fertility difficulties like sperm deficiency, poor sperm quality, obstructions between the egg and the sperm, sperm-egg interaction problems, and tubal problems.

How does IVF work?

• A woman's body naturally releases one mature egg each month. Women going through the process of IVF are given special reproductive hormones to develop multiple follicles, each containing a mature egg. Depending on the patient's response to the medications, sonograms and blood tests are required every one to four days between 7:00am and 8:30am. This close monitoring of the woman's response to the medication is required to minimalize side effects and to optimize egg quantity.
• HCG, or hurman chorionic gonadotropin, is a hormone that can be detected in a woman's blood or urine to indicate a pregnancy. An HCG injection is given around 34-36 hours before the egg retrieval takes place. When the egg is retrieved semen is also collected from a partner or donor.
• During egg insemination, the eggs are and sperm are put together in a sterile dish like a petri dish or a test tube within a specialized incubator. The incubator controls the best environmental conditions to promote normal fertilization. In most cases, an addition procedure is added called ICSI, or intracytoplasmic sperm injection. During ICSI, a single sperm is placed into each egg. This procedure increases the chances of fertilization. A day after the retreival of the eggs, the eggs are then evaluated to determine how many of them have been fertilized.
• Embryos are then evaluated and graded daily based on their rate at which the cells divide, the size and number of the cells, and the amount of cytoplasmic fragments present. These fragments can affect embryo development and can be removed if necessary.
• Three to five days after the egg retrieval, the deemed appropriate embryos are then transferred into the female.

IVF process

What is PGD and How Does it Work?

PGD, or preimplantation genetic testing, involves testing done during the IVF process and prior to the embryos being implanted into the female's uterus. An embryologist examines the embryos for genetic or chromosomal diseases, and their gender. Based on the parents requirements, the embryologist chooses the appropriate embryos and transfers them into the female.  

Although the technology of  IVF and PGD may be appealing, I believe making designer babies for a cosmetic reason is unethical. As humans, we should be able to love any living creature. It should not matter if the baby is a girl or a boy, has blond hair or brown hair, or has blue eyes or brown eyes. We are essentially judging a book by its cover: loving the baby instantly if it has the characteristics you want, or learning to love and appreciate (by will) if the baby does not live up to the parents' expectations. We should be able to accept everyone for who they really are and not what they look like on the outside. If designer babies become a trend, we would almost be (like Connie said http://itsalive-conn.blogspot.com/) breeding out our differences. Imperfections would be ridiculed right away and the scientific technology of genetic processing can be easily be compared to buying clothes because they are fashionable and what the parents like.

But the idea of genetic processing may be learned to be accepted if it was for a scientific reason. Many IVF babies are done only because parents have found a reoccurring recessive gene running in their family causing disease or disorder. Through the use of IVF, the offspring may be able to live life free of this said disease or disorder. Another way genetic processing can be useful is to eliminate future life-threatening diseases or disorders.  

At the same time, genetic altering may also bring up monetary issues. Some parents are paying $19,000 to choose the gender of the baby. Add that number to the cost of raising a kid (around $180,000 to $300,000) from age 0-18. Include that sum with a college or university tuition, parents may eventually be filing for debt. Would you spend that much more money so your kid can be all kinds of  perfect? Would you manipulate your child's genes so that it could be your preferred gender? As the parents would want their child's appearance to be perfect, they may likely also have high expectations of their perfect child, which may evidently lead to a child's low self-esteem. These problems does not only bring up moral or ethical issues, but it can also lead to monetary and psychology issues as well. To conclude, if IVF or PGD is done for scientific reasons as mentioned above, I believe it is okay to do so. If it's for cosmetic reasons - a definite nono. Are we not able to accept people for who they are? Or do they have to meet up to our expectations for us to like them?  


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Sources
http://www.infertilityspecialistnewyork.com/ivf-process-in-vitro-fertilization-manhattan-brooklyn-bronx-new-york-ny.htm


http://www.advancedfertility.com/preimplantation_genetic_diagnosis.htm


http://www.personal.psu.edu/jjc5111/blogs/eng_202c/2009/04/designer-babies.html

http://www.suite101.com/content/choosing-pink-or-blue-in-todays-baby-gender-selection-a277312


http://bodyandhealth.canada.com/channel_section_details.asp?text_id=4452&channel_id=2048&relation_id=43235


http://www.bionetonline.org/english/content/db_cont1.htm


http://www.ivf.net/ivf/what-is-ivf-o761.html