Designer Babies: Ethical Aspects of Non-health related gender selection

Before the advent of designer babies, people are unable to choose their children’s genes. Now, designer babies are well-known as the solution for any kind of health problem, especially for sex selection. This demand creates an unique market for parents who desire to determine their child’s gender before giving the birth.  However, it is still consistently asked whether designing a baby is justifiable from the perspective of ethical aspects or not. There are two factors that play role on the answer of the question such as intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Those who have concerns about any technological application of implantation are the case of extrinsic factors. But the reason of why it is a complex situation more deeply link to intrinsic concerns. Intrinsic concerns include  religions, emotions, ethics and naturality. Hence, intrinsic factors more crucial than extrinsic factors since ethical considerations are directly corelated with instrinsic factors. In other words, intrinsic ones are the determinant factors which play greatly role on ethical dilemmas. Hence, followings will explicitly contain more intrinsic factors rather than extrinsic ones. The intrinsic reasons of why people think sex selection of designer babies are ethically permissible are; “presence of social inequality, securing the survival of humans and independent choices” (Sousa, Mário, and Barros). However, Non-health related sex selection of designer babies should not be ethically permissible or justifiable.

   In designer babies choosing gender is ethically impermissible owing to confliction arisen from right to live. Almost every parent prefers to posses a certain sex. Many parents desire to have a girl or boy in terms of their certain desires or needs. They apply for preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) but they are unaware of ethics. According to Liao, there are main operations of  PGD for having desired gender. In the process, doctors give medicine to mother in order to ovaluate more than one egg since they want to have more eggs that may have different sex to fertilise. The third day eggs are biopsied to find out their gender. Then, they select desired sex to implant mother’s uterus. Unfortunately, afterwards, the other unwanted embryos are simply discarded. According to Sousa, Mário, and Barros, parents have rights to demand and make choices independently like determining their child’s sex. However, as it seems, the process of PGD should not give parents such a right that enables to eliminate those embyros during the process of designing the baby. Since people do not have right to affect other people’s health condition. It is vital to emphasize that people do not have the right to make such a decision that changes other human-being’s life conditions.This  human right is also aplicable for those embyros.To understand why, people can ask themselves this question: are embyros human-beings who have rights?. For those, who claim embyros are not a human being, misunderstand the definition of being a person. In ethics, being a person are defined by this notation: If someone “possesses continuous consciousness over time”(Descartes), he/she is a person just like embyros. After admitting the point where embyros are person, it is important to notice embyros’ rights. Liao clearly states that “persons[or embyros] typically have a right to life, which means that they have at least some immunity against attack by others”. That immunity is applicable for those discarded embryos. Because affecting embyro’s future life are utterly unethical since nobody has rights to affect other people life and decisions. Moreover, when interfering other people’s decision, it is highly important to think about afterwards. Since parents can not presume what are the preferences of the designer baby, they can readily encounter to regret of the designed baby as time passes. In other words, parents can easily be the reason of why the designed baby is not content with his/her entire life. Additionally, embryos have also legal protection against any other attack because their lifes are viciously affected. During sex selection, these violations are simply disregarded .To fully comprehend the idea, think about someone being harmed by another person. Laws suggests that attacker should be punished for the assult but in case of designing the baby, nobody takes penalty even though embyros are highly considered as a human being who have right to live. This should be considered as an assult, an illegal situation and unjustfiable from the perspective of human right ethics.

    Autonomy of the embryo should play role in non-health related gender selection.  There is also another type of PGD for gender selection, which does not contain discarding embyros during the process. In such cases, doctors simply implant a virus that alters genomes slowly to obtain desired sex. This type of PGD is more plausible than discarding embryos but it is still hardly justifiable owing to human rights. In human rights, people have autonomy to make their own decision without any obligations and influences of others as Sousa, Mário, and Barros states. Yet, they also do not take embyro’s autonomy into consideration even though embryos are considered as a human-being. It is essential to notice that “changing the sex of the embryo would also require the embryo’s consent” (Liao). In the operation of PGD for sex selection, the case of being autonomous completely is disregarded from the perspective of the embyro since the embryo’s demands and/or desires can not be consulted. Almost every medical procedure should contain patients decisions and preferences when it comes to non-health related medical operations. According to Quill, Holloway and Robert, “patient preferences should play a major part in medical decisions.” Unless doctors can ask embyro about what is your preference or desire, this procedure is not ethically permissible from the perspective of autonomy. Since it is impossible to learn embyro’s desire about sex. This is an enforced medical operation without consent of those embyros. To eleborate the case more deeply, it is essential to aware of that embryos are unconscious. Also, realize that the similarity between unconscious people and embyros. In such circumstances, a doctor can operate an operation without the person’s consent when life-saving is on the ground. But consent is simply necessary when the operation is non-health related. For those reasons, non-health related gender selection through PGD is utterly not acceptable and/or applicable owing to right to be autonomous.

   Non-health related gender selection ought not to distort the gender ratio in the society owing to gender discrimination.An approach from a social perspective for non-medical sex selection introduces a vital problem which is sexual discrimination. Although, it is believed that favorism of certain sex is a natural phenomenon for some traditions, “allowing sex selection will introduce inequality along both gender and ethnic lines in our society”, according to Stankovic. Even though with the absence of PGD for sex selection, gender discrimination is still frequent in the World. Imagine sex selection through PGD was legislated, gender discrimination would greatly increase. Because sex selection causes decomposition between both gender as Stankovic claims. In nordic countries, for instance, favorism of having male gender is highly common and it is still continuoes to exist. This type of favorism promptly causes decompositive thinking. In other words, people start thinking about gender is a determinant factor in the society. It can be thought that one gender is more superior than the other one. This type of conception eventually causes confliction in the both genders. Moreover, the peace of the society would be no longer exist since discrimination divides society into two groups; female and male favorism. From these socio-ethical aspects, sex selection is totally unjustifiable and ethically impermissible.  

    Non-health related gender selection wastes genuine medical resources. In addition to that non-health related gender selection creates sexual discrimination in the society, it is required to completely comprehend socio-economics too. Since PGD is an expensive operation and can only be prefered by people whom wealth is adequate level, insurance companies would be obligated to pay the fee of PGD to prevent social inequality. However, Stankovic claims that “PGD currently costs thousands of dollars, and if used solely for sex selection will divert medical resources from genuine medical need.” It can be understood that although heatlh insurance companies support parents who are unable to pay the cost of PGD, sex selection through PGD wastes vital medical research’s resources. In order to have more precise comprehension, picture that a health insurance company which has certain expense pool, people try to find a cure for cancer within a limited medical resource to cease inequality of the society  Even though  Sousa,Mario and Barros mentions about “presence of social inequality”, health insurance companies would cover the fee.

   Jeopardazing embyro’s life for trivial genetic alterations is not ethically allowable. The human body behave like a complicated machine which has sub-components that works within a harmony. Hence, any genetical implantation has own risks from the perspective of getting the exact intended result. The reason is genes’ unpredictable behaviours on each other. “Many genes have more than one effect”(Agar). there should not be any possible conception about compromising health of the person for such unimportant non-health related purposes because “there are safety objections, especially ones arising from unforeseen and harmful side effects.”(Steinbock). Therefore, risks should be taken for vital circumstances such as prolonging people life’s expectancy and/or preventing serious diseases After admitting that the unpredictability of  the genes may cause unwanted results, it is particularly needed to acknowledge that the responsibility of risking embyros life is milestone.To illustrate the case, for instance, parents want to make their child super intelligent. They start to medical procedures.Yet, they are unaware of the fact that all genes have connection with each other. Changing one simple gene affects the other genes. This could cause problems such as  gaining sensivity towards pain, colour blindness and/or any other health health issues. Just being intelligent is not worth these weaknesses and also bad health conditions. According to Steinbock, even if doctors alter all the genome of the child like clonning, doctors can not obtain desired results due to the environmental effects on genes. Therefore, genomes can act completely different compared to desired results.