His condition can only be cured by a bone marrow transplant from a perfect genetic match but no suitable donor has been found. The only way Zain can be saved is if Raj and Shahana have a designer baby.
Embryo selection will allow cells from the designer babies umbilical cord to be used for a transplant to save Zain's life.
This case is one reason why we should allow designer babies to be produced. However, should we only let designer babies be produced for life saving reasons and not for perfect children?
In countries like China couples are only allowed to have one child due to high population problems. Most families hope to have a boy as boys can carry on working to get an income (women do not work in china) and can keep up the family name. If we made designer babies available to everyone for any reason people in china would only want male babies and the female population in the country would be much lower than the males.
The main reason people (especially religious people) don’t want designer babies to be made legal is because its not what god intended. He intended natural births otherwise he would not of made us this way. It is not a natural thing to do and you should not play with nature.
People also want to have designer babies if they have ‘ugly’ features, for example, a big nose. They may have been bullied because of this feature when they were younger and do not want their child to go through the same experience that they went through if they were to inherit this feature. A designer baby could be made giving it a smaller nose to be certain he or she don’t inherit the feature.
If the making of designer babies was made completely legal the child made would no longer resemble its parents, which is one reason why people have children. To see a younger version of themselves grow up.
Another point against designer babies is, “how would the child feel to grow up knowing that they were a designer baby and were not normal?” They might grow to resent this fact and hate their parents for doing it to them. However, if the child is given special skills, for example, he or she was made more athletic and was a fast runner the child may be proud of its parent for making the right decision. However they may feel the opposite, that they cheated, as they are not naturally talented and do not deserve to be awarded for a talent that was deliberately given to him or her.
There are so many different views on this topic so it is hard to decide what is the right thing to do. Personally, I believe that designer babies should be legal to produce for life saving situations but no more than that, as people will forget all about the natural way of having a baby and take designer babies for advantage. It is not right to choose the colour of your child’s hair and eyes and how clever he or she will be. The child would no longer have a part of the parents inside it; it will not have its father’s chin or its mother’s eyes. It will just have an image, which people believe to be beautiful, and will no longer take after its parents.
By Emma Wilson 10G
