Genetically Screened Baby

[Godhand]

http://news.softpedia.com/news/First-Genetically-Screened-Baby-Born-in-the-UK-101613.shtml

I don't know how this makes me feel.

On the one hand, I love progress like religious people love their God. On the other, I guess it was easier to campaign for artificial eugenics while it was still far too unsexy to actually institute. It was easier to root for the future before the future actually came. This kid is just the opening volley; now it's just a hop, skip and a jump away to genetically engineered babies and then the total obsolescence of any surviving members of the non-screened generation.

How does everybody else feel about this?

[Caden Law]

Mixed.

Good-bye to hereditary diseases, cancer, all that in the long term. Hello to so many moral quandries it'll probably spark a couple wars somewhere way down the road. I doubt it'll catch in most of the Americas, Africa, or large parts of Europe and the Pacific, but there will be a few major markets scattered around the world.

[Duffy]

Welcome to the future, gentleman.

Sit back, fasten your seatbelts, and remember - we'll all be dead before it happens anyway.

[Hysteria]

There have for a long time been genetic testing for some types of genetic diseases. You can also right now go and get your own genetic test listing the likely hood of dozens of conditions (heart attack, diabetes, schizophrenia, etc). At least in the USA you can't be denied health insurance due to genetic indicators. However, there is no legislation I know of which protects how much money you are charged.

The scary thing is that governments are so slow to tackle these issues.

[Godhand]

we'll all be dead before it happens anyway.

It's gotten to the point where they can map a genome in about a week for one thousand dollars American and an in vitro fertilization clinic briefly offered the choice to pick your baby's hair and eye color before public outcry forced them to withdraw those options. Mark my words, It'll be less than ten years before the technology is there to pick your kid's size, I.Q. and athletic prowess. You can already pick the gender with a 100% success rate.

We'll be fucking golems compared to these people. My knee-jerk reaction is to join the jesus monkeys in protesting, but I've always campaigned hard for stem cell research and any other sort of controversial science which could result in progress and it'd seem unbearably hypocritical to suddenly turn against it just because I happen to be the one railroaded.

This may seem alarmist, but christ, hair and eye color. (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/03/02/2009-03-02_custommade_babies_delivered_fertility_cl.html)

[Nayeli]

I think it's hard to argue against preventing diseases (isn't it? I mean, I can't think of a reason not to) but anything beyond that just creeps me out. Seriously, even hair and eye color freaks me out, and that's just superficial changes.

I'm not even sure why. I'm not worried about becoming obsolete, which seems to be Godhand's dilemma, it just seems creepy to have a population that ends up being so similar to one another. Heck, you could have fads, like naming; instead of a whole crop of baby Emilys, you could find a whole generation all born with red hair or to look like Harry Potter or something.

But then again, it's not like every characteristic is even chosen by genes, or if it is, it's a complicated combination of them that you probably couldn't plan out. Stuff like personality doesn't really come in genes, or at least, not in a simplistic fashion like it's usually portrayed. It isn't like "oh, this is the neat freak gene," and "oh, this is the talking on the cell phone too loudly gene," and "oh, this is the driving like a friggin maniac gene." And choosing a baby's personality would creep me out way more than a billion super-athletic Christian Bale babies.

edit: What if they engineered a crop of babies to have exactly Godhand's personality? Discuss.
second edit: Am I the only one who finds the phrase "a crop of babies" to be sort of hilarious?

[Zook Murnig]

Honestly, if it comes down to fads of appearances, I think the public is culturally divided enough (goths, emos, wapanese, gangsta, etc.) to at least still have some diversity within a community.

As well, this is in the labs only. You can't genetically engineer without using in vitro fertilization (aka test tube conception). I'd like to think, personally, that in the near and distant future, people will still like doing the nasty enough for regular babies to be born.

This seems like more of an option for those who either have the money to be picky, or have the need, such as a woman with a predisposition to disabled children, or to auto-aborting embryos of a particular blood type.

[Mikeavelli]

Highly approve.

Whenever I have kids, I plan to get the best genetic engineering I can afford. To do any less would be to rob my children of the opportunities they could have otherwise had. And, though genetic diseases are rare in my family, inflicting upon them anything that could have been avoided borders on criminal negligence.

Eye and hair color I'm indifferent about.