Design a Baby

Image 1: Designer characters.

      Can you imagine being able to choose what your little brother or sister would look like? You could pick what color eyes they have, what kind of hair, even how smart they are, just like designing characters in a video game. This is called making Designer Babies.

     

Where Do Designer Babies Come From?

      We know that babies grow inside our moms' bellies. When the baby is just starting to grow, its called an embryo. The embryo isn't a baby just yet; in fact, it looks just like a little dot. The doctor takes the embryo out of the mommy's belly and puts it in a special chamber, and then is able to rearrange the DNA bases (1).

      The human body is made up of trillions of tiny cells, all stacked on top of one another like building blocks. In every cell there are even smaller molecules called DNA; this decides things like hair color, eye color, if you like computers or if you can play piano (2). It's made up of four very special bases - thymine, adenine, guanine, and cytosine, or T, A, G, and C. 

Image 2: DNA bases.

These four bases act like codes, and the way they arrange themselves determines what a baby will look like. For example, the code AGC could be for blue eyes, and TGC could be for green eyes. It's kind of like moving around refrigerator magnets to spell out different things. The four bases fit together in different ways to form different traits, or what a person looks and acts like.

      Once the doctor changes the genes, he puts the embryo back in the mommy's tummy, and the baby grows and is born nine months later, just like any other baby.

Why are Designer Babies Important?

      Have you ever met someone that looked just like you, even if they're not your brother or sister? Could you imagine if EVERYBODY looked just like you? By making designer babies, it's possible to make us all look the same, which could be a bad thing. I don't know about you, but I like to look different than everybody else; being different is what makes us special. If everybody looked and acted the same, no one would be special anymore (3). Because of that, designer babies can be a bad thing.

      But designer babies can be a good thing, too. Have you ever heard of Down syndrome? This is a sickness that makes people not as smart as they should be (4). Down syndrome is a genetic disease, and its not the only one. Remember how the four DNA bases make codes for our bodies? Well, sometimes those codes go wrong, and that creates genetic diseases like Down syndrome. But by making designer babies, doctors can fix those. So if everyone was a designer baby, no one would have genetic diseases like Down syndrome.

      So you see, designer babies are very important, and they can be a good or bad thing. Some day, when you're all grown up, lots of you will want to be mommies and daddies yourselves, and you'll have to decide if you want to have a normal baby, or a designer baby.

When that happens, just remember everything you've learned here today - all the history and facts - and think hard about it before you decide. 

References

1: IVF costs – in vitro fertilization costs. (2015). Retrieved from: https://www.ihr.com/infertility/ivf/ivf-in-vitro-fertilization-cost.html

2: Genetic engineering. (2015). Retrieved from: http://www.scienceclarified.com/Ga-He/Genetic-Engineering.html

3: Baird, S.L. (2007, April). Designer babies: eugenics repackaged or consumer options? The Technology Teacher. 66(7), 12-16. Retrieved from: http://www.iteaconnect.org/

4: http://www.ndss.org/Down-Syndrome/What-Is-Down-Syndrome/