Designer Babies

Cutting edge reproductive science has come a long way, baby, since in vitro fertilization and sex selection: we're talking about screening out diseases, and breeding in intelligence, looks, and perhaps even personality via pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). Designer Babies looks at the ethics of sex selection during its first half, before moving on to the hot topic of genetic engineering aimed at “designing” babies with or without certain genes. “We're taking control of our own evolution,” one scientist remarks, but the program very clearly points out that “we” are not making babies to spec, since only the wealthy can afford it. All of which raises interesting questions: Will the rich pre-screen embryos and discard those deemed unworthy, while poorer people continue to have babies in the old fashioned, roll-of-the dice way? Could this lead to a permanent overclass and underclass, like the Alphas and Gammas of Brave New World? Would gifted people such as Stephen Hawking be discarded before pregnancy because their genes don't measure up? And the religious debate about “life” isn't even touched upon here (wisely). Great grist for a biology class debate, Designer Babies features stories from tomorrow's headlines--indeed, the day after I watched this, news broke of a baby (already 17 months old) who had been PGD screened to be free of her mother's early-onset Alzheimer's. “O brave new world, that has such people in't!” A good complementary title to earlier entries such as Brave New World: Why Not Clone a Human? Ethical Challenges of Biotechnology (VL-9/01), this is highly recommended. Editor's Choice. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Reagan)