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I'm nowhere near TTC now but I recently read about genetic manipulation in embrious. What they do is to analyze the In Vitro embryos and select the ones likely to get certain diseases and rule them off to implant the "best ones". In the future they hope you can choose your baby's hair color, eyes and even if he'll be good at math or a musician.
I understand the mileston this would be, but I wouldn't want to have a Mr potatto face baby, it just feels odd. I'd like to know how some bees feel about this. Would you do it?
I must say that I'm pro genetic advance and although I wouldn't do it I don't think it'll be an awfull thing for others to do it. What about you?
I could see using it to make sure your children aren't effected by disease. I could also see people using it for gender selection. I wouldn't do it, but I could understand why someone would. As far as hair and eye color that just seems like it's going to far.
Pretty sure I saw a movie about this once... Gattaca.
I'm DEFINITELY opposed to it. I'm kinda weird about genetic/IV advancements anyways just b/c I feel that when we as humans get to much knowledge we tend to do more harm than good.
I think if this was really done (or in the future when it is) it won't be good. =/
I wouldn't want to do it, but then (kinda like the movie) having a child naturally without using this almost puts the child "behind" the rest from the very start b/c they aren't "genetically" top pick.
I think it would force parents to feel like they'd HAVE to do it for the best for their child.
hmmmmm
ETA: Even using it just for the "disease" omition would mean that naturally conceiving a child would go out the window... we'd HAVE to do IVF for conception. What about parents that would want to do it just with "fun" time?....
Personally, I'm not a fan. I like a good ole fashion mix of whatever Mom and Dad have to offer. People can change their eye color with contacts, dye their hair, and use plastic surgery to alter their body shape. You can work hard to be athletic and study hard to be "smart". I think choosing the stuff for the offspring is incredibly selfish and purely parent oriented.
I'm also talking stricty about looks and abilities , not genetic diseases.
I could see using it to make sure your children aren't effected by disease.
But choosing physical features and abilities is taking things too far, IMO.
Also there is the whole nature versus nurture debacle. I think even without an "artist" gene or whatever, you could still be phenominal, and vice versa. You could pick the "artist" gene and enroll your child in baseballl and he may never pick up a paintbrush. Are genes really driving people to do things?
I absolutely would not meddle like that. Screening for diseases I can understand but to choose such details seems like overkill.
Have you ever seen Gattaca?
From what I understand the only ways this is possible right now is through IVF. Basically, the doctors will dispose embryos with certain genetic deficincies in order to boost the success rate of a healthy, term pregnancy.
ETA: And I see I repeated what you said, lol. Theoretically speaking, if this became an option, I'd be open to doing it for medical conditions only, not for physical features.
@Eva Peron: It's a movie with Ethan Hawke.. pretty good... and scary if it came true =/
@amnystik: Oh I can totally see that happening, eventually people will start putting this children appart cause they can't compare natural vs altered children.
@Eva Peron: They don't have it streaming... it's worth renting though =)
Sure, for diseases. Sex is a gray area, but less offensive than choosing other attributes.
Just want to clearify that DNA can be altered, they can totally play mr potatto head with the genes and then fertilize the egg, it might not be 100% what you ordered but it'll be close.
They just haven't find a way to do it without harming the embryo but they're working on it (maybe they already do it but just haven't published it).
I've got schizophrenia and cancer on my side of the family. FI has Alzheimer's on his. If we could lessen our child's chances of getting any of those, I'd be all for it.
I wouldn't do it. What if you choose to have a child who is "good at math" and they don't end up that way? I feel like you'd be searching for something that isn't there and setting unrealistic expectations for the poor kid.
@amnystik: bummer, I added it to our shipping que though!
So I'm no scientist but are they suggesting you pick babies based on other womens/mens donations or you pick from the variations you have between you and your partner?
@strawbabies: FI and I were discussing the show (that's why I started the thread) cause he says he wouldn't do it, but thinking about the alzheimer and diabetes in my family makes me wonder...
Maybe once you've seen grown people who were selected and know they do turn out well and have no side effects, but just for diseases, I wouldn't even want to pick the baby's sex.
I say yes for diseases, but no to everything else.
Isn't that half the fun of having a baby? Seeing whose features they have, whose hair colour, etc.
@Eva Peron: As far as I know they're only working with existing genes, meaning they can only use the ones the egg and sperm already have, but maybe someday they'll try to add genes from different chromosomes.
This is happening in Argentina BTW =P.
Not a fan. I do understand screening for various diseases, but how would we ever decide what diseases get screeened and which don't? I just think it's meddling too much into how our bodies naturally do things.
I want my child to be who he or she was meant to be, not someone I picked out of a catalog.
@Coffee cup: I think the thing about that is this...
My husband had cancer a few years ago. When his current boss found out he got kinda ansy and asked some more questions like "you're not still dealing with that are you?."
Now what happens when employers & insurance companies (not wanting to deal with an employee getting sick/terminally ill) starts asking...
"Well were you naturally conceived or genetically picked?"
I am glad someone else made the point of Gattaca (DNA nucleotide base sequence anyone? Nerd moment sorry). Personally, that takes "playing God" to a level that would not be good for humanity. Stuff like that will lead to less and less genetic variance, and the ideal "master race" and ask anyone who lived in Europe in the 1940s, master races=BAD THINGS. Also eventually if we mess with out genetics too much it is going to lead to our downfall I am convinced.
I get the part on wanting to avoid implanting an embryo with glaring genetic problems, IVF is exspensive and one wants to give the best fighting chance to a healthy baby. Personally I would never choose IVF, FI and I already know if we can't have babies on our own we are going to adopt, well heck, we are planning to adopt if we can. So I would never in a million years choose to have IVF and choose all the things about my child.
What happens if they still don't end up how you want? DNA divides billions and billions of times even between the phases of cell differentation in utero, so what happens when it shuffles out a trait you wanted or shuffles in one you don't? Do you scrap the kid once they come out and aren't what you want?
It is a place I seriously hope humanity never gets to.
Not my cup of tea, but it would be nice to prevent my future children from having horrible eyes since FI and I don't have the best. Mine a lot worse than his. Anyways, I'll just stick to the old natural way. It's been working great for years and years.
@Coffee cup: ha no surprises there lol ! Last I checked , My mother in law told me the famous Nazi Doctor " Angel of Death" Josef Mengele who tried to alter children and make everyone blue eyed Aryan etc etc fled to Argentina
I don't agree with it. I can see why people who have different basic beliefs than I do would choose to do it and I wouldn't think less of them for it, as long as it's because of something disease-related. I would probably think less of them if they did it because they only wanted a whole family of blue-eyed blondes or something.
Obviously I don't want my baby to have to suffer through some of the things that I or my family have (hereditary disease related things) but I wouldn't alter anything myself to ensure it.
I am totally opposed.
You know who tried to play with genetics and create superior humans... Hilter and his crazy Nazi scientists. It's a really slippery slope, IMO. You start out with good intentions to try and rid people of disease, before you know it we're having "designer babies". It's creepy and wrong.
@amnystik: Gattaca was the first thing I thought of too. Great movie, but the thought of it coming true is really disturbing.
@amnystik: Yeah I took a Bioethics class in university and we used to fight argue over this all the time. There's this idea that goverment will implement anti discrimination laws to prevent employers and schools to ask if someone's genetically altered, but who knows, not asking doesn't mean they won't find a way to find out.
@Eva Peron: Actually a lot of the higher up Nazis we didn't get in the Nuremberg trials ran off to S. America, not just him! Gah he was a creep... some of the genetic trials they did and the "science" is something from a horror movie! *End Tangent*
Totally against this. And I'm glad several of you have already brought up the Gattaca connection. Honestly, that's just not the world I want to live in. I think that, by and large, this move is motivated by fear and a desire to control the future. But a genetically perfect child can still go out and get hit by a car, while one with the gene for a particular disease could theoretically live a long life without that disease ever presenting itself. I guess I don't want to be so crippled by fear of terrible possibilities that I'm unable to just live my life.
@Coffee cup: yea... and if I remember correctly trying to get health insurance isn't like getting a job. Getting DH covered is outside of through his work isn't fun & is automatically higher in cost. Same with life insurance.
I could see this easily being a new box put on there and even if you've never had any of these "genetic history" diseases you're automatically flagged b/c you were genetically picked. =/
@Eva Peron: Yeah there was an entire show on History channel about argentinan investigators who tracked Nazis. But their genetics research it's really amazing, we're suck in plants here while they're creating human organs.
@zippylef: OMG can you imagine a Gucci baby??
@chasesgirl: haah yup!! My husband and I are Nazi era Nerds ( we love watching historical documentaires, movies, books etc ) and almost every source documents a huge influx of people running to S. America for a place to be harbored. Sad but true.
@Coffee cup: Do you have an article , book or movie reccomendation for the topic we are talking about right now? I'd love to see whatever you have been studying/watching!
@Eva Peron: Not really sorry, I've read a lot but it's all papers from school and a lot of discovery channel and since bioethics covers everything, not just genetics, my class was pretty much a debate class and we just spend the entire time arguing. I haven't even watched Gattaca although I've heard a lot of it.
There's this movie Splice, not exactly about babies but touches the subject about playing with genetics.
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