designer babies and statistics of genetic engineering

             Creating "designer babies" has its ups and downs. Since it is not yet a proven and undertaken task among the public yet, its theories consist of possible situations. If in the future the possibility for the wealthy, who will be the only ones able to afford the process, they will be given the option of choosing not only eye color, sex, and hair color of their embryo's or unborn baby's genes but with the fast approaching adaption and discoveries that come with nondisease treatments, they can test for muscular strength, temperament, personality attributes, and much more. It is a scary process, not only are we in the age of "super computers" but now we have broken into a phenomena of practically sketching out your kid front toe to head. according to the site http://www.humansfuture.org/genetic_engineering_designer_babies.php.htm , titled Future Human Evolution, Genetic Engineering, it sums up the possibilities of designer babies: "Most of us have seen the term 'designer baby' used by the media. The term conjures up images of couples sitting down with a catalogue and carefully selecting each feature, characteristic and trait one by one; sex, eye and hair colour, height, weight, talents, definitely not the father's nose.  The scientific reality is far removed from the media fervour. You can select an embryo with the right chromosomes to produce the child of your chosen sex or have the embryo screened for a potential hereditary genetic disorders, or choose an embryo that is a genetic match for a sibling who already has a genetic disorder, but anything else is pure hypothesis."

So in saying, birth catalogs may one day be composed where parents can choose to substitute certain idealized features for those which would naturally occur in their own gene set because it is seen as inferior to the "enhanced version" gene. Parents could one day have the option of choosing their child's instincts, moods, social behavior, beauty, and health. As for me, this is one scary idea. Not only is it an idea but it is a very high and likely process that will occur one day. Imagine if you could design humans, and everyone would look perfect, flawless. The idea of the movie Surrogates coming true to where we are all in perfection and live as long as possible is unreal and should not every be possible. We are made, designed, and limited on time just as we were supposed to be. What do you think? Would you want to be able to create perfect children? Because if you were not wealthy or unable to participate in the process otherwise, imagine how inferior those who were born "normal" would feel. We would have prejudice and discriminatory groups against those who are "purebred and perfect" and those who are "normal" and perhaps called "mutts".

While designer babies still remains and is considered as a possibility because the technology is not yet developed,  a real experimentation is going on within society, with atheletes. Recently they have found out and acquired ways in which to grab hold of this process to better themselves for their competitions or sports. They have desired, coaches and athletes alike, to build a better athlete with gene doping.  We've always had performance-enhancing drugs like steriods, erythoropoietin, and growth hormones. The International Olympic Committee created the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) because of this which prohibits the use of performance-enhancing drugs among athletes. But recently they have had to battle against the newest abuse of drugs, gene doping. 

In gene-therapy, which is disease treatment and used for disease purposes, the transfer of genetic material to human cells treats or prevents the disease within that person. Gene therapy has been used in situations such as cystic fibrosis, haemophilia, muscular dystrophy, and sickle cell anemia. But gene doping takes advantage of gene therapy within the same process but increases the amount of proteins and hormones that the cells normally take. MSNBC's article http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10628586/ns/health-fitness/t/sports-authorities-fear-gene-doping-not-far/#.Tq7_wEPiGU8 , titled Sports Authorities Fear Gene Doping Not Far Off states that WADA has held two previous conferences discussing the effects and uses of gene doping among athletes in the Olympics. At the second conference held in Stockholm, one of the world's leading expert in disease-purpose gene therapy and the chairman of gene doping panel of WADA, Theodore Friedmann says that  “I’m not so sanguine as I was that this is far off in the future.” Scientists studying genetics, Friedmann reports, “often say they are approached frequently by athletes, trainers, entourage-type people asking what is available.”

Although the cases are minimal and hard to find, one proven abuse of gene doping has occurred with Thomas Springstein, a german coached accused of genetically engineering his athletes with the use of Repoxygen, a banned substance used in gene therapy to treat patients with anemia. It is responsible for increasing the amount of oxygen the blood can deliver to the muscles, thereby enhancing muscle growth and ability. Scientists were able to discover they could induce muscle development through the experimentation of the "Schwarzenegger Mice" who were tested on to see the effects and possible results of muscle growth and strength in the late 1990s. Ever since then, coaches, athletes, and scientists have been constantly on the move to develop higher and more proficient ways of enhancement among humans. Gene doping is hard to test for due to the fact of internal modification of genes, so scientists and WADA are on a run to develop ways to detect this gene doping so that everyone gets an equal chance within sports.  (springstein's athletes)

My point within this entry is to make known the possibilities and dangers of nondisease testing and engineering  within humans. Our world and the technology along with it are growing at astonishing and  lethal rates with few who seem to be striving to stop them. We need to be aware of the dangers that will arise if nondisease testing becomes accepted within society. I stand against the use, testing, and idea of genetic engineering for nondisease purposes. We should stop it before it can evolve; our society needs to only do genetic engineering  for DISEASE purposes and even that to the minimal extent.