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This group project focuses on designer babies and whether they are a positive development for our future or not. We would like you to join us in exploring the positives and negatives of designer babies, some specific examples of designer babies including cases which had the potential to be tragic and others which ended with a hopeful outlook for the future of designer babies, the public opinions of designer babies and the opinions of our peers. We chose this topic as it was something we thought would be interesting to learn more about and through the process of creating our report, presentation, and poster we have been faced with some truly thought-provoking questions and have come to some exceedingly difficult conclusions and opinions. For this reason, we want to welcome you into the magical, scary, slightly science-fiction world of designer babies which we may have to get used to very soon as the potential for designer babies in the next 100 years is growing.
Amy Fernie, Glen Maclean, Genevieve Dobson-Davies, Molly Flanagan
Despite the benefits of Designer babies, Do you think this could be used as a method for pushing eugenics? And as a follow up, do you believe the potential disadvantages of eugenics (Primarily a loss of genetic diversity) could apply to designer babies?
I can’t speak for the whole group but I personally believe designer babies could be used for pushing eugenics as it is the same kind of concept meaning they could potentially become equally important. I believe that the disadvantages of eugenics could also apply to designer babies as for example, the loss of genetic identity is the same kind of idea we explored within the disadvantages of designer babies as it would create a lack of diversity within society.
Do you think that being able to check babies for genetic defects gives a reason for why it should be acceptable to use genetics on unborn children?
I think so, if the positives outweigh the negatives in things such as the medical field, i feel that it is acceptable.
Do you believe that Designer Babies could leave even more room for discrimination as people could pick out specific feature they don’t want?
I think there definitely is the potential that this could happen as our society seems to discriminate against so many things that are often just unreasonable eg. gender. However, if people were aware of the specific feature that was causing the discrimination, everyone could pick it out meaning it wouldn’t be an issue.
In the future, do you think there will be a ban on people choosing designer babies on a physical scale based on trying to alter a baby’s height, hair/eye colour and intelligence, which will be made illegal, and specifically use the option for designer babies for medical purposes only?
I am not entirely sure if there would be enough support for a law to be passed on choosing certain aspects of designer babies, however I definitely think it would be a positive thing as those were our groups biggest concerns for designer babies with medical purposes being the main benefit for the introduction of this concept.
Your presentation is really well researched, do you feel like the negatives out weight the positives of this argument and do you think this could change ?
Thank you so much! As a group we decided in our opinion the negatived outweighed the positives as there was so many things that could go wrong and it is almost impossible to predict the future on this topic, however if designer babies could be developed to a stage where it was safe every time then the medical benefits would definitely outweigh the negatives thus changing our opinion.