With the enhanced recognition of the importance of the biotechnology, scientists are now making possible for couples to go for made-to-order designer babies. Designer baby, one of the human genetic engineering projects, is a direct manipulation on human’s genes. Designer babies are born with certain traits and have the selected desired qualities by using pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) which is also called pre-implantation genetic profiling, referring to genetic screening of embryos prior to implantation and sometimes even of oocytes prior to fertilization. The main advantage of a designer baby is to reduce the chances of being born with several serious diseases.
However, there are a couple of drawbacks of this make-to-order baby. First of all, changing a baby’s DNA is risky, and there might be unexpected and different levels of damage to the baby. Genetic engineering project itself may not work properly. Selecting a specific type of trait such as hair color may turn off a different type of gene. This problem will not manifest until the baby was born. In addition, the existence of designer babies may make this society unbalanced. In some regions and areas, couples prefer male babies to female ones. In the future, millions of males will finally die out.
