Fertility Doctor Will Let Parents Build Their Own Baby

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http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=6998135 & page=1

Fertility Doctor Will Let Parents Build Their Own Baby

Clinic's Service to Custom-Design Baby's Hair and Eye Color Sparks Controversy

By GIGI STONE

March 3, 2009

Imagine if you could choose your baby the same way you pick out a new outfit

from a catalogue. Perhaps some blue eyes, a bit of curly hair, and why not make

her tall, lean and smart? One fertility doctor now says that he may be able to

deliver.

Dr. Steinberg has already helped thousands of couples choose their

child's gender at his fertility institutes in Manhattan and Los Angeles. Within

six months, he says, the clinic will offer a new service: allowing couples to

select the physical traits of their babies. Steinberg says he cannot promise

that people will get their selections, but claims he can dramatically increase

the probability.

" I can't say with 100 percent certainty that parents will be able to choose

something like eye color -- more like 80 percent certainty, " Steinberg said.

The procedure is called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD. It's been

used by fertility doctors for years to screen embryos in the lab -- mostly for

parents who want to reduce the chances of carrying a baby with life-threatening

diseases.

According to Steinberg, the technology behind genetic screening has progressed

to the point where parents can almost custom-design their babies.

It isn't clear that Steinberg can safely deliver on his claims. ABC News spoke

to a variety of geneticists and fertility experts who disagreed about whether

this science is actually possible. Many said it seemed conceivable. Others were

not so sure.

" Theoretically, I suppose, as our ability to probe the human genome, and to

apply various tests to a specific gene that has been discovered, " said Dr. Zev

Rosenwaks of New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. " That

possibly anything can be looked for and potentially identified and applied. "

But Rosenwaks said he strongly opposes the possibility, adding that is not the

role of a physician.

Designer Babies Set Off 'Slippery Slope'

Science's understanding of genes is way ahead of the ethical debate surrounding

designer babies. While there is no legal prohibition against customizing your

baby's traits, the reality of a brave new reproductive world generates enormous

emotion.

" There is no more important question that is going to face us than deciding how

to control and use genetic engineering and genetic selection to design our kids.

Nothing, " said Art Caplan, ethicist at the University of Pennsylvania.

" Designing your descendents and seeking out perfection is the biggest slippery

slope we could go on, " he said. " Are the rich going to be able to do it and the

poor not? Are we going to create a sort of subpopulation of the genetically

perfect as against everybody else? "

Are parents playing God? Couples routinely choose the sex of their new baby and

are able to carefully screen egg and sperm donors, but many say this advancement

takes it too far.

Steinberg says that designing your baby is on the verge of becoming reality. The

question for parents, doctors, and society is whether this is progress and if

they are on board.

[Guest guest]

The article stated: " Imagine if you could choose your baby the same way you

pick out a new outfit from a catalogue. Perhaps some blue eyes, a bit of curly

hair, and why not make her tall, lean and smart? One fertility doctor now says

that he may be able to deliver ... <snip> ... "

And now that we're making decisions about babies the way we make decisions about

cars and homes, does this mean that if the baby doesn't quite meet the parents'

needs and wants, that the baby can be traded in on a newer model or passed off

to another set of parents that would just love to have that kind of baby?

This sort of thing is ridiculous in my opinion.

Raven

Co-Administrator