The field of medicine is moving at a rapid pace. Doctors and scientists are making monumental strides every day, elongating the lives of those with terminal illnesses, identifying those diseases in patients who have yet to be diagnosed, creating prosthetic limbs for those who have lost theirs, and much more. Each day the human race is more knowledgeable than it was the day before, which is incredible, but with that knowledge comes an ethical responsibility of citizens to engage in what is morally correct. Recently, the field of genetics has taken initiative in editing the genes of embryos. The technology that has been implemented in order to do this is able to remove genes for potential diseases and even make the embryo a more physically attractive child. It is truly amazing what scientists are able to accomplish in gene editing. However, it comes to a point where lines need to be drawn based on which genes are ethical to remove or add to the human embryo. Scientists and parents must consider the possible implications creating a “designer baby”, or modifying the genes of an embryo to create the ideal child. Using gene modification in order to create a “perfect” embryo, or a designer baby, is unethical because of the class divide it would create in society, the lack of quality human life in designer babies, and possible implications for family life designer babies could cause.

Before the ethics of gene modification can be put up for debate, it is important to understand the science that allows scientists to perform such modifications. “Crispr-Cas9” is known in the science world as the method which scientists are able to use to edit genes in the human embryo. Crispr is an acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, which essentially means that short RNA sequences can be transcribed into DNA sequences, allowing scientists to adjust specific genes to their liking. This method has been known of since the late 1980s, but has not been used for this type of procedure until more recently, after scientists discovered that it could be used to alter DNA. It was Jennifer Doudna and her team of scientists at the University of California, Berkeley that brought this idea to fruition in 2012 (Zimmer). Time Magazine’s Alice Park interviews Doudna on the potential ethical violations that Crispr could be making in the near future, Doudna says “Every technology has the potential to be used in ways that are beneficial to humanity and potentially problematic,” Doudna describes her ultimate fear concerning the technology, “Somewhere, someone will do something with the technology that is perceived to be dangerous,” (117). Doudna was one of the major contributors in the field of gene modification, she worked for years to make this a possibility, yet she still sees the possibility of people abusing the technology. Doudna makes it clear in her responses that her primary intent with gene editing is the ability to remove genes for diseases like cancer or sickle-cell anemia, something her and her team have been working on since they started. Although Crispr has the capabilities for adding or removing genes for physical appearance, athletic ability, intelligence, and more, the main factor Doudna would like to focus on are the genes that predispose children to illnesses. Thus, the root of gene editing and its original intention is to edit genes for diseases. Before anyone attempts to move beyond that to create a designer baby, ethical questions must be answered.

Once one has engaged in gene modification by any stretch, they are delving into the debate of when a child is conceived. Depending on the person, they could believe that when the embryo has turned into a fetus it is a human being, others believe that only once the child is born can it be considered a human being. Then, there are those that believe that at conception, a human embryo is a human being and should be treated as such. In order to edit genes, scientists look at several embryos formed by the two parents and choose the one most suitable to the parent’s desires for their future child. In the process of doing this, as many as twenty human embryos are disposed of (Macip, Willmott 10). Twenty potential children are simply thrown away because they are undesirable to the parents. In his academic journal, Marc Lappé, former health official and professor at Pennsylvania State University, explores the many components of gene modification and ethical questions raised when deciding to proceed with such a procedure. On discarding unsuitable embryos, Lappé writes, “This [procedure] would either require wholesale destruction of failed attempts while still in embryo stages, or at an extreme, the killing of abnormal fetuses whose phenotypes did not correlate with initial expectations,” (Lappé 629). No matter how vetted and proven this procedure can get, scientists still have to go through and screen up to twenty embryos from the parents and decide which one to keep and which ones to discard. This is no longer a matter of safety for the child once it has been genetically modified, it is a matter of discarding several human lives in order to do so. Before doing any further research or making this procedure available to the public, it must be decided whether or not people are willing to repudiate up to twenty potential human lives in order to change something as simple as eye color or intelligence.

Beyond the science behind gene modification, the cost of the procedure is something that will affect society greatly. While the ability to remove genes for diseases in a human embryo could be extremely beneficial to us as humans, the financial component of it is a major factor that needs to be considered before moving forward. Business Insider puts a price tag of two thousand dollars on gene editing at the very least (Loria), but procedures in a well-established lab can cost up to ten thousand dollars or even more. Factoring in the enormous cost to have children, housing, clothing, child-care, education, and much more, this is a cost that the average family will simply not be able to afford. According to the Wider Opportunities for Women Association (WOW), “15 percent of the United States lives below the federal poverty line … [and] 45 percent of families are unable to afford basic needs like housing, utilities, food, child-care, transportation, healthcare, and essential household items,” (Pyke). Almost half of the United States is not able to provide for their families the most essential items they need, so adding another ten thousand dollars to this is not very plausible. It is likely that if gene editing were to be made available to the general public to remove diseases or go even further to edit physical traits, the people that would be engaging in this procedure would be the upper class that are able to come back from such a large investment. This is where a divide between the upper and lower class is widened; because the wealthy would be the only demographic able to afford such a procedure. It would then be the upper class children that are more physically attractive, do not carry genes for obesity, are more athletic, more intelligent, and essentially just the more ideal human being. This would give the wealthy the upper hand in nearly all aspects of life, excelling in grade school, college and job applications, finding a life-partner, and much more. The ability to be able to cater the characteristics of a child to the parents’ wants and desires is a remarkable step for us as humans, but with it comes the consideration of many different factors, one of which is the price of such a feat. Lawmakers must ask themselves if they are willing to launch the county into an even further disparity between the upper class with the rest of the country in order to create a designer baby.

Apart from the expenses of gene modification, there is a grey area when it comes to which genes are ethical to edit and which genes are not. There are plenty of different genes that are able to be added or removed to the human embryo: genes for diseases, body type, hair type, eye color, physical endurance for athletic abilities, academic intelligence, etc. Obviously everyone has their own idea of what the ideal look is for their child, opinions vary from person to person. But it can be agreed upon in general that athletic ability and intelligence are not necessarily bad traits to have. If gene modification for these traits is made available to the general public, it is likely that most people would make sure their child had these traits, and it gets to the point that people cannot be more and more athletic than others that have gotten the procedure. Paul Knoepfler, a STEM cell researcher, explains why he thinks there would be a lack of quality in human life if gene modification were to become increasingly popular in the future in his TED Talk called “The Ethical Dilemma of Designer Babies”. Knoepfler describes a scenario of a two little girls, one “natural” child and one genetically modified child. The two girls are friends, but looking at them next to each other and watching them interact, it is clear that not only is the genetically modified girl extraordinarily more intelligent than the “natural” girl, but she doesn’t have a runny nose, baby fat around her face, or frizzy hair. The genetically modified girl ends up going to a special school because of her high level of intelligence, and the “natural” little girl worries if she will be her friend anymore, or why her parents did not love her enough to genetically modify her. This is the rift designer babies would produce for society. The difference between natural-born children and designer babies would be too great to ignore, resulting in a divide between the two. Knoepfler proposes that until we can prove that there aren’t defects of genetically modified humans such as increased aggressiveness or narcissism, we as a society should not proceed with this technology (Knoepfler). Before we can proceed with the technology, we should ask whether or not we want to build up a stigma around natural-born or designer babies and do we want to deal with the divide this would create between the two. 

As a result of creating a designer baby, the difference between having a natural-born child and a genetically modified child will change the way parents look at their children, what they expect from them, and how they form a bond throughout the child’s life. Often times, you hear parents saying that their child received their big nose or their short stature. In pursuit of creating a designer baby, maybe the parent decided that their nose or height was an undesirable trait that they did not want their child to have, so they simply removed that gene. While it is not essential to a parent-child relationship to look exactly alike, it is important for the child to know that they came from their parents and they have a special bond because of that. Salvador Macip and Chris Willmott comment on this circumstance in their academic journal, “Where Science and Ethics Meet”. The scientists write “the ability to choose characteristics of our children turns parenthood into a financial transaction with certain expectations regarding the ‘product’ we have ordered…a ‘gift’ becomes a ‘commodity’,” (10). It is arguable that such a “transaction” completely changes the way parents look at their children, as more of an investment they made rather than a blessing they love unconditionally. With many different genes than their parents have, designer babies would have more difficulty relating to their parents, as they are essentially completely different people. For example, a designer baby with phenomenal athletic ability would feel estranged in a household of lethargic, overweight family members. While the child would still share genes with their family members, the child would know that their athletic abilities are not something they were born with, it is just a gene that their parents bought for them, creating the issue of what the child’s identity really is. The dynamic that is created in a household is based off of love in the ways that family members are similar to one another, or at least genetically similar. Designer babies disrupt this dynamic greatly. 

To solve this matter of what is ethical with regard to genetic modification, there should be very specific laws made to outline what can and cannot be done to modify a human embryo. There are no current laws in the United States on genetically modifying anything but food products, more commonly known as GMOs, which has very little relation to the ethics of designer baby debate. Technically, if one wanted to create a designer baby in the United States, there is no law stopping them from doing so. Laws surrounding gene modification are going to depend from country to country; for example the United Kingdom has traditionally taken a very restrictive approach to gene modification in order to protect its citizens (Library of Congress). However, we as a society should be responsible enough to make sure that gene modification does not get out of hand by imposing laws against designer babies specifically. Until we can be sure that there will be no side effects of being a genetically modified human, the U.S. government should make regulations to be sure genetically modified humans are not created. Once it can be deemed a safe procedure, only genes for terminal illnesses should be the genes that can be modified in order to protect people from the many issues that arise in the case of designer babies: distancing of the upper class, lack of quality human life, altered family dynamic, etc. Rather than using science to enhance egotistical traits such as eye color or genes for obesity, gene modification should err on the side of morality and ethical basis, to explicitly edit genes for terminal illness and nothing else. 

The ethics of designer babies is a debate in the science world of extreme importance because of its increasing popularity and new opinions forming every day. The age of designer babies is getting closer and closer to us each day and with each day there is greater concern for how this will affect our society. By taking action, guidelines can be created for which traits are ethical to edit within the human embryo, thus having the ability to take control of how gene modification will affect society. Creating laws that restrict which genes can be added or removed will help to avoid the disruption of the family dynamic, the divide of economic classes, and allowing for higher quality of human life. Using gene modification in order to create a “perfect” embryo, or a designer baby, is unethical because of the class divide it would create in society, the lack of quality human life in designer babies, and possible implications for family life designer babies could cause.
