Have a baby a la carte. Monstrosity or not, it jumped to the Spanish media that an American assisted reproduction clinic would make it possible very soon. In addition to making a preimplantation diagnosis of the embryos to choose one that is not a carrier or patient of genetic diseases, next year the Fertility Institutes clinic, also planned to allow the child to be born to be the one that most pleases his parents for His physical appearance.
This, which may seem like a frivolity, could in some cases have medical reasons, such as preventing diseases to which the very clear skin predisposes, but the really chilling thing is to think about the possibilities of science fiction that eugenics opens up.
¿It is ethical to modify the genome human or play with the laws of inheritance? Society today allows children not born who would have suffered health problems due to their genetic endowment or mutations and to select the healthy ones. However, we reach quicksand if we ask ourselves if it would be equally acceptable to choose embryos according to whether or not they were predisposed to serious diseases, such as having a gene related to having cancer in the future.
However, is it ethical to choose the sex of the child, or his hair color or eyes according to non-medical criteria, but cosmetic or personal taste? Would it be possible for us to decide for a child who does not have flat feet, crooked teeth or myopia? Would we choose a taller or smarter child if it were in our hand?
I remember Gattaca. It is an excellent film, in which Ethan Hawke struggles to demonstrate that he can achieve what is proposed, which is as valid as those who are considered perfect.
In the future that the film presents, humans are selected by eliminating the smallest defect from their genes. They are children of their parents, but they are clean of any mistake, they are perfect, healthy, handsome and intelligent. But some, like the protagonist, were born without being properly manipulated. And they are marginalized for not being supposedly perfect.
Despite what we have seen today in the news and read in the newspapers, if we enter the clinic page Fertility Institutes It is clearly explained that they have suspended the "cosmetic" selection project. Faced with the avalanche of criticism and the media impact, they will limit themselves to carrying out these analyzes in the case of people with albinism or other ocular pigmentation disorders.
The growing knowledge of genetics opens thousands of possibilities as interesting as worrisome, so I leave the question here.you would choose a baby a la carte?
