Designer Babies
The article "Designer Babies" written by Patricia Smith for Upfront, discusses the idea of parents being able to select the traits that their children will have in the upcoming future. This is alarming for some because they believe that it is wrong to personally select what your child will be like, while others think that this is amazing since it is possible to create the world's first perfect human. Scientists are looking forward to using this ability to alter DNA in order to create a baby without any health issues, while others look forward to using this in order to get specific traits out of their offspring. This has now turned into a battle of ethics, whether or not humans are allowed to tamper with nature to such an extent. I believe humans should not be allowed to interfere with the genetics of our own children due to my morals.
One of the reasons why I don't agree with creating "designer babies" is that I believe humans should not tamper with their environment and with genetics to such an extent. This would be changing the DNA of a human being and changing what they would be. You are removing all of the chance of reproduction and making it so that humans determine who they are instead of nature. By doing this I believe you are making humans and nature two separate things, humans would be playing God and determining what generations of humans to come will look like, act like, and be good at.
I also disagree with the idea of "designer babies" because I believe you are removing the uniqueness of the human race by creating them. There is no doubt in my mind that most parents would pick very similar traits: high intelligence, athleticism, musical ability, etc. This would remove the ability of humans to have different strengths and weaknesses and be unique when compared to each other. By doing this you are making humans a lot less diverse and making everyone similar.
Others believe that by doing this you can create humans with no health problems whatsoever and help the human race as a whole, you don't have to alter any other traits. However, people without a doubt are going to find their way around this and still create "super babies". And either way, you are still changing the DNA of the child in order to create a human with less flaws, so even though you are doing it to a lesser extent, it still goes against my morals.
In conclusion, I believe that it should not be allowed for a human being to change another human being's traits to any degree because of multiple reasons, but overall because it goes against my morals. Individuals would never know the feeling of being special or different. From that point onwards, we would never be able to consider ourselves a part of nature again.
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