Ali 1

Zak Ali

Beals

English 101

Final draft

8/2/19

Designer Babies: Future or Frankenstein?

Humanity is ambitious. Maybe too ambitious. Since the beginning of history, we have

used two specific tools to explore vast unknowns – wisdom and bravery. These tools helped

shaped many human advancements from sailing towards unknown seas, achieving flight,

creating medicine, and even space explorations. But humanity’s ambition may have flown to

close to the sun like Icarus. Some advancements although good intentioned may come at the

expense of our destroying ourselves.

In today’s modern age, where cloning, face recognition and GMO foods are a

controversial hot topic, there’s lies a new ambition. Genetically modified human embryos.

Editing and pasting genes onto a future human being is just like Frankenstein’s creation. This

alteration of unborn babies’ fates in the hands of lab coats & greed is a real possibility in our

near future. The image can paint an eerily parallel of the unfortunate creation portrayed in Mary

Shelley’s Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus. Humanity may have gone too far in its vison

much like Victor Frankenstein. Designers babies raise many ethical concerns and they cause

many dangerous issues. Issues such as creating societal gaps, disturbance of natural human

nature and regrettable consequences - just like the horror story of Frankenstein.
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The simple definition of a designer baby is an embryo that has been genetically altered to

produce specific traits and characteristics. Meaning in a perfect world you could breed out

certain types of diseases, so that the baby won’t get them. But as history has proven - it’s not a

perfect world. Too much ambition leads to greed, meaning if certain traits can be edited out the

gene pool then certain advantageous traits can also be added in. One could be literally bred to

outclass regular human beings in unimaginable ways. From having immunity to disease, insane

athletic advantages or photographic intelligence. They could inspire unhealthy admiration or just

bitter resentment. The gap in society between designer babies and the average human would be

something out of a horror story. In fact, nothing says so like Victor Frankenstein’s reaction to his

designer-like creation, “How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the

wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavored to form? His limbs were in

proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! — Great God! His yellow skin

scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath … but these luxuriance’s only formed

a more horrid contrast” (Shelley 20). His reaction of disbelief, awe & disgust almost serve

almost as a warning to humanity. The designer-like creation is instantly categorized as an “other”

and not a real human. There is a separate distinction made & humanity cannot handle that

imbalances a gap in society. Especially when only the wealthy will have the means to pay for

designer babies, it spells trouble. And many others fear the same. Dr. David King, the founder of

Human Genetics Alert says, “Once you start creating a society in which rich people’s children

get biological advantages over other children, basic notions of human equality go out the

window, Instead, what you get is social inequality written into DNA”. Just like the famous story,

Frankenstein’s monster who just wanted to be seen as an equal, his physical makeup prevented

others from seeing so. Designing genes creates an obvious societal gap. A societal gap as instant
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as Victor Frankenstein’s reaction to his creation. A society where designer babies either crawl or

rule is not a pleasant one.

Man should not fight human nature or disaster will ensue. All the money and time being

put into researching technology for designer babies is only fighting against our nature. Altering

humans like action figures with no uniqueness or weakness only destroy our human essence. In

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: the Modern Prometheus, Victor discovers this sentiment, “The

different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature. I had worked

hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I

had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardor that far exceeded

moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream banished, and breathless horror

and disgust filled my heart.” (Shelley 20). Victor Frankenstein regrets toying with human nature

and its balance only after the damage is done. If modern designer babies come to full fruition, we

may also be disgusted & regret changing the balance of human nature. Males or females could

unevenly outnumber their natural population ratio. Certain skin colors or physical feature could

die out as time goes on. Families with genetically altered babies and regular babies could be

setting up an envious family structure. Everyone is born equal in human nature but this

technology could change all that, down to the DNA. Designers babies unnatural as they are, may

even one day come to dominate man at the top of the food chain. Leaving regular humans as

outcasts and maybe with enough time & circumstances … to eventual extinction. The author of

Frankenstein's Footsteps: Science, Genetics and Popular Culture says, “Man is the watershed that

divides the world of the familiar into those things which belong to nature and those which are

made by men. To lay one's hands on human generation is to take a major step toward making
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man himself simply another of the man­made things” (Turney 160). This brings an excellent

point. If we disturb with our natural human nature itself – we may not even be human anymore.

We should never forget about the rights of the babies being genetically modified. Imagine

how they feel. They have no consent to whatever consequences of this new disturbing

technology could bring. There are many unknowns to as how far gene editing could go. It raises

many ethical concerns and regrettable decisions such as, “Should parents be allowed to pick

embryos for specific tissue types so that their new baby can serve as a donor for an ailing

sibling? For that matter, should a deaf parent who embraces his or her condition be permitted to

select an embryo apt to produce a child unable to hear?” (Scientific American). Purposely

putting in physical defects on babies due to the whims of parents robs the child of all of their

natural choice. Designers babies are also not an 100% exact science. Unforeseen harmful

consequences could result altering a babies’ genes. An author, Sharon Begley, from Statnews

reports, “While the 150 experts from industry, academia, the National Institutes of Health, and

the Food and Drug Administration were upbeat about the possibility of using genome-editing to

treat and even cure sickle cell disease, leukemia, HIV/AIDS … there was a skunk at the picnic:

an emerging concern that some enthusiastic CRISPR-ers are ignoring growing evidence that

CRISPR might inadvertently alter regions of the genome other than the intended ones.”. So, we

could be harming our babies who go through this Frankenstein-like technology with the opposite

of the desired outcome. And if they not harmed by it then maybe they will pass down some harm

down toward their family tree. Or perhaps a new illness could be created from altering genes that

would defeat the purpose of designer babies. Ultimately, we are transgressing the rights of these

children who would go through these designer baby modifications whether they are harmed

physically or not. And just like the Frankenstein monster these designer babies may also grow to
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feel disdain towards their “designers”. Designing babies would be creating something no

different than modern day Frankenstein’s.

However, there are those who support the technology of designer babies. John Harris, a

bioethicist at the University of Manchester says, “In effect this would remove a fault from

humanity forever, the human genome is not perfect. It’s ethically imperative to positively support

this technology”. This is referring to the claims like that designing genes for babies will wipe

out many hereditary diseases. However, what those who share his sentiment do not grasp is that

experimenting with designer babies will very likely lead to many accidental consequences. Real

human lives & families could be devastated if a single gene does not develop the way it was

intended. The ambitions of those who support designer babies are bold, but reality is bolder.

Ambition is good. But having too much can blind you. Just as Victor Frankenstein soon

discovered, “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an

inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health.” (Shelley 20). Designing

babies would be a wrong step for humanity. We could be creating monsters and not even know

it. Working so hard on gene modification technology only shows parallels with the creator of the

Frankenstein monster, Victor Frankenstein. We would be creating huge societal gaps and classes.

We would also be disturbing the natural balance of human nature. And we would almost

certainly have unforeseen consequences as a result. My belief and what many others share as

well, is that we want an equal society where everybody has a chance. Not one where designer

babies are literally bred to succeed from before birth. Or one where designer babies are shunned

like the story of the Frankenstein monster. Designing genes like an evil scientist disturbs our

unique identity & nature of humans. Human advancement is a great thing but designer babies

like Frankenstein could very well be our worst horror story.

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Works cited:

Begley, Sharon. “CRISPR Has off-Target Effects That Researchers Have Been Ignoring.” STAT,

9 Aug. 2016, www.statnews.com/2016/07/18/crispr-off-target-effects/.

“Designing Rules for Designer Babies.” Scientific American, 2009.

Geib, Claudia. “Expert Argues That Gene Editing Will Widen Economic Class Gap.” Futurism,

Futurism, 9 Aug. 2017, futurism.com/expert-argues-that-gene-editing-will-widen-

economic-class-gap.

“The Need to Regulate ‘Designer Babies.’” Scientific American,

www.scientificamerican.com/article/regulate-designer-babies/.

Turney, Jon. Frankenstein's Footsteps: Science, Genetics and Popular Culture. Yale University

Press, 2000.

Mary, Shelley. From Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus

Harris, John. “Designer Babies: the Arguments for and Against.” The Week UK, 2018,

www.theweek.co.uk/95108/designer-babies-the-arguments-for-and-against.