Fertility Clinic Offers Designer Babies
Posted by Hannah Tennant-Moore at 4:00 PM on February 18, 2009
Wanna make sure your baby has sparkling blue eyes? What about olive skin and blond hair? You’re in luck, because Fertility Institutes in Los Angeles is offering parents the option of choosing their babies’ physical traits! It’ll cost you, of course, but then—what’s more important than your child’s physical appearance?
Some would argue: his health. And indeed, the same technology that Fertility Institutes plans to use for made-to-order children was originally developed for the important purpose of screening embryos for fatal genetic disorders. This procedure is known as PGD — pre-implantation genetic diagnosis.
Already, 42 percent of PGD clinics offer couples the option of choosing their baby’s gender, but Fertility Institutes is the first clinic to offer cosmetic choices as well.
If this sounds scarily redolent of eugenics to you, you’re not alone. The U.S. is one of few countries that have no regulations in place to govern the uses of PGD. Many doctors who support PGD argue that using it to for non-medical purposes risks limiting human diversity and increasing societal discrimination.
But Jeff Steinberg, the director of Fertility Institutes, is not one to be scared off by a bit of bad press. “This is cosmetic
medicine,” he says. “Others are frightened by the criticism but we have no problems with it.” Nor, apparently, do they have souls….
Image: CBS News
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