Giving the Worse-off a Voice in the Debate about Genetic Enhancement Technology
Unlike a few years ago, when conceiving a baby girl or a baby boy was a matter of chance, today's prospective parents can choose to alter the genetic make-up of their children in order to enhance their offspring's well-being in the future. Recent advances in the field of genetics can now help people to become parents, and even allow them to choosing the sex of their baby. In March 2009, the BBC reported that a couple in California, Kristen and Matt Landon, have used genetic testing techniques to select the sex of their daughter at a fertility clinic in Los Angeles. As researchers learn new ways to manipulate genes, they plan to take things a step further by offering what some are calling "designer babies". The term “designer babies” refers to a baby whose genetic makeup has been artificially selected by genetic engineering combined with in vitro fertilization (the joining of a woman's egg and a man's sperm in a laboratory) to ensure the presence or absence of particular genes or characteristics. Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, a pioneer in in-vitro fertilization and director of Los Angeles Fertility Institute, said that he “would predict that by next year, we will have determined sex with 100 percent certainty on a baby, and we will have determined eye color with about an 80 percent accuracy rate." The prospect of “designer babies”, like many of the ethical challenges posed by the advancements in genetics, is confronting the world so rapidly that doctors, ethicists, religious leaders and politicians are just starting to grapple with the implications.
In recent discussion on the applications of genetic technology, a clear distinction has been drawn between “gene therapy”, the use of human gene transfer for therapeutic purposes, and “genetic enhancement”, the use of human gene manipulation to