Being a social work major I feel the need to stress the importance that every child is beautiful and perfect, but 'designer babies' are not. Children are born to be the way they are, they are designed by over a million possible combinations and codes of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) that end up making one, perfect human being. Everyone is born the way they are for a reason and messing with that certain combination that makes that person who they are, is trying nature, or as some may say trying God. I've found and studied three articles found on the library database at the University of South Carolina. With my discoveries I've only made my stance on the issue stronger. The three sources I will be using are "The public Should Oppose Designer Baby Technology" by Rahul Thandani, "The Designer Baby Business Violates Christian Principles" by Michael Poore, and "The Non-Medical Screening of Embryos should be Banned" by Cheryl Miller. All three sources are of the opposing side of designer babies and credible due to past experiences. 

To make matters clear, a designer baby is a baby who was taken as an embryo and had its genetic engineering and makeup altered with a combination of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) to establish the presence or absence of certain genes or characteristics. In Thadani's article his main focus is on the social aspect and outcome of the procedure being done. He claims that there is a substantial charge that will ultimately result in an immense divid between the poor and genetically altered. There will also be a decrease in human diversity resulting in less immunity to new diseases due to the common genes. Like almost all of my sources, Thadani makes the comparison to A Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxely in 1932. In this novel there is a futuristic utopian society that has its citizens as having picked traits and being fixed before they were born as to which social standing and class they belonged in. This novel was yet a mere fiction that is slowly turning into reality because some parents are selfish and only care about having what they think is the 'perfect' child. Thadain also focuses on the ethical looks of the procedure. He firmly believes that there is going to be resegregation in society, even though we have been trying so hard to completely diminish this issue; but this time it will be between the superior modified and the pure inferior normal human beings. Thadain also refuses to miss out on mentioning the effects on the children: by changing one gene another will be changed as a reaction, a child may be able to do one task and not another, or making a child out to pursue one career when he/she may want to do another. Thadian makes great sociological points in his writing.

Focusing on the Christian viewpoint of the matter of designer babies, Michael Poore makes some interesting points as well. While his own opinion about these parents is bold, "self centered and narcissistic", he touches on the ethical issue by making the claim that this procedure doesn't aim to provide medical aid to the unhealthy but it capitalizes the mere desire of parent to have handpicked children. In one case Poore mentions a certain case about a deaf lesbian couple who desire their child to be deaf as well. As they have the money and time to waste they get their wish commanded. Aiming at the power of love he concludes that we as Americans have reproductive freedom which entitles us whether or not to have children, when to have them, with whom to have them, and how many to have. This matter can also include designer babies, but this procedure is anti cultural which is antihuman. In his conclusion he makes the most amazing compilation of sentences that sum up exactly what parents should feel toward any of their children: "love enables us to accept all children as unique and unrepeatable human beings. It envisions people, not projects. It liberates us to accepts all possibilities beyond our desires, even beyond our imaginations. Love enable sacrifice, even great sacrifice, without regard for loveliness and desirability. it is the embodiment of the very nature of God Himself" (Poore). While I personally do not care for when individuals preach their faith, I feel like in this sense this is okay because a lot of people believe in a form of God. 

 Concerning the more medical side of the issue of designer babies, Cheryl Miller is up front and serious about the unnecessary, perfecting act. First coming off stating that the industry will most defiantly succeed as long as there is a profit opportunity in this three $3 billion dollar opportunity and that there are parents' never-ending desire to supply their offspring with advantages. She claims that there are no rules nor regulatory oversight when it comes to this nonessential for of connecting of . Bringing in some statistics she notes that of the 30 industrialized countries in the world that have developed biotechnology, roughly 77% refuse or ban to do embryo screenings for non medical purposes. Of these medical purposes would be to detect any abnormality, disease, or dysfunction that is visible in the embryo during a screening. Initially the prescreening intentions were to just look for these faults in the DNA, but it has become a small jump to just being able to choose the sex of the child, which is great for a scientific revolution, but it is unnecessary and very unethical. 

I believe all three of my sources covered the necessity of the overview of designer babies, but I also believe there is more information out there that can better my future paper. Having the possibility of designer babies is threatening to society by lowering racial ethnicity, creating segregation and raising a lesser immunity to disease, while also continuing to make a profit off of families that want to have a child that seems perfect to them, when in actuality every child is born perfect without be altered in a test-tube. 

