Because today is Thursday (my normal post day) and because I’m bored:
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I recently read an article in our local newspaper indicating that 23andMe, a genetic testing company, has been granted US. Patent No. 8,543,339, entitled “Gamete donor selection based on genetic calculations.” (Wow, that’s a mouthful, isn’t it?)
Essentially, as I understand it (and I have absolutely no scientific background, mind you), the purpose is to enable people to predict the genetic traits of babies based on the DNA of the parents.
I’d like to think the patent was obtained with the viewpoint that parents could breed out inherited diseases, but I’m guessing there are people who would love to use such testing to “design” their offspring – you know:
Add a Gene/Change a Gene/Delete a Gene (E-I-E-I-O)
Without getting into the ethics and politics surrounding this patent, I would simply like to say:
If parents could design their offspring, 99.9% of the kids born in the future would behave a whole lot differently than they do today.
I mean, what prospective mother could resist the opportunity to breed into her child an obsession to clean his or her own room without prompting?
What prospective father could resist growing the next [INSERT NAME OF PRO-SPORTS PLAYER HERE]?
Both parents would want to assure that their 16-year-old daughters had an inborn aversion to dating before the age of 30 (and then only with Dad’s express permission).
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if parents could totally breed out sassing, stubbornness, “I hate you and wish you were dead!”, etc. etc.
Even better, maybe we could set up the genetics in such a way that the child went immediately from the cute-new-baby phase to the thank-god-he (or she)- is-finally-an-adult phase!
Never mind the blue eyes, handsome face, beautiful body – I want to choose my kids’ personalities!
Can we find a way to take the kids who are already here and change their genetics NOW, so that they become Stepford-children?
I love all three of my girls, but it would have been so much easier to raise them if they didn’t have that normal teenage hatred of obedience!
So what do you say, folks – want to get on-board with the idea of assembly-line children? Or should we just muddle through with genetically flawed beings like those that populate the world today? After all, you wouldn’t have to worry about your perfectly designed child growing up to become, say, an actor, a comedian, a writer [heaven forbid!], or a politician. Is that cool or what?
Not.
(Actually, now that I think of it, that patent is self-destructive. People who would choose to “design” their offspring are so flawed themselves that their DNA isn’t likely to make it into that new gene pool anyway.)
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Cordelia's Mom, Still 
Um… I’m guessing that this would be a bad idea, other than the compulsion to clean their room and not talk back. I mean…what kind of planet would it be if say, Donald trump was doing the designing?
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True, but the theory is that he could only design his own kids, not everyone else’s.
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That would be bad enough.
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I think people who are foolish enough to design a total child aren’t wise enough to realize that raising a child is an adventure. Sure, I think it would be great to miss out on my shortness and short legs, and more seriously hereditary and avoidable horrible disease. However to produce perfect Barbie/Ken Dolls or Scholars or Athletes seems to be a bit shortsighted. Who knows what wonderous person we might miss out creating. I don’t carry, that I know of, a real devastating disease, if I did, I might have a different andwer. I do think I would make the choice to avoid giving some devastating illness or disability to a child if possible. Yet, I am aware that once I fuss with a recipe, I have no idea of the outcome. So, I am not sure what I might do, unless things were bleak.
I am certainly pleased, and was relieved when Kidlet was basically A-ok. She had issues. An issue that no one had heard of and I devoted myself to fixing for the first sixteen-years of her life. Maybe the truth is that no one comes out of parenting unscathed.
Why is that, some might ask. It is because when our children are born, they steal our hearts, and never completely give them back.
By the way. Kidlet was accepted to Stanford, Yale, UNC-CH and a bunch of other colleges when she graduated in the top 5 in her high school class. I did not manufacture a perfect child with a perfect grade point average, so that was why she was ranked in the top 5 and not a bit higher. We let her enjoy high school, a rarity for her peers. And she graduates with multiple degrees, most that I wish she hadn’t majored in, this December 2015. Because I am not so sure about producing a perfect child. So I never tried. I just tried to give her what she needed, and some of what she wanted.
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My third child inherited her dad’s heart condition along with my ulcerative colitis. Would I have chosen to alter her DNA as an egg if I could have avoided that? I don’t know – avoiding those diseases would be nice, but maybe altering the DNA would cause something worse. It’s an interesting subject.
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It has some other helpful applications. My daughter sent her sample to 23 and Me…and found a lot of interesting info about the history of her DNA, genetic inclination toward certain illness/diseases, etc. and connected with some distant cousins who she didn’t know, as they were linked doing their own research. This stuff is fascinating, and a bit frightening as well. I hope we never get to the point of designing our offspring…God help us, seriously. ☺
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I agree that DNA testing has its benefits, especially when it comes to determining a genetic inclination towards developing a disease.
But I couldn’t resist the impulse to poke a little fun at the whole idea of Stepford children.
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Ever watch the movie Gattica?
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No, I haven’t.
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It is exactly what you are talking about. A world of people designed to be genetically “perfect” and one individual that is “free born” and how society has created a new caste system. Pretty interesting sci-fi flick, you should give it a look.
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Thanks. I will.
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If they made it retroactive, most of us would disappear.
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That’s true, for sure. I know I would.
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I completely agree! We should not do this. We have no right to “play God”. I just had a beautiful little niece born this week with congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), She was flown within hours to Kosair’s children’s hospital and had surgery yesterday. She is doing very well and will live a normal life. We could have changed all of this with this nifty little patent, but then what about the inspiration she may become to people in the future? What about the purpose she has been given by God? We will never understand why this has happened to our family, but will also always be thankful to the amazing doctors and nurses who have taken such great care of the entire family. I am hoping this ordeal, and others like ours, can bring families closer together and closer to God. I have heard of these types of things before and have never thought it was right. This world isn’t given to us to make stepford babies, if we do this, what happens to individuality??
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I’m so glad your niece is ok after surgery. It’s hard enough dealing with a newborn, without having to deal with medical issues, too. That is not to say, however, that building the perfect baby would be advisable. Sometimes the imperfections are what make an individual so much more endearing.
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Exactly! And thank you.
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Sorry I’m late to the discussion CM. Genetic manipulation scares me. As a race we have terrible track record established with breeding dogs and other animals for traits we want without consideration of some of the bad things that brings with it – like hip displacia, back problems, shorter life spans (than mutts), special diet , etc. But we got what we wanted, didn’t we?
Unfortunately, our science has grown beyond our ethics once again and there is no way o put the genie back in the bottle, yet it scares me.
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So long as they don’t start genetically engineering bloggers … 🙂
Genetic engineering scares me, too. I don’t even want to eat genetically engineered foods.
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