Yes, I would do it without hesitation. Make mine super smart, super attractive, and super healthy, please. Evolution is over-rated. It’s had a good run, now it’s time for something else.
You mean intelligent design?
Not if I was able to conceive naturally - ideally, that’s how I’d have a family. But if I had to do IVF for fertility problems anyway? Sure! Trim off the bits that give our family such a strong history of diabetes, do away with Dad’s ankylosing spondylitis gene, nuke the myopia and then leave the rest to chance.
I’m fascinated to see what nature will do with regards to how the child will look so that’s not something I’d want to play with, but I’d be happy to give the child the best shot at being healthy that I could.
Sometimes my girlfriend and I joke about us having a kid someday. She’s Filipino and Chinese, I’m white. I always say, “I bet he’d look like Lou Diamond Phillips.” And then she says, “yeah but he might also look like Rob Schneider.”
So I’d use the service. I’d want to make sure we got the best features. Everyone in my family tends to be pretty good looking, and her mom looks gorgeous in her late 40s, so I think we’re probably OK, but I don’t want to take any chances with any recessive Rob Schneider genes that might pop up.
Anyone participating here who hasn’t seen GATTACA should; it’s well thought out and relevant, if overacted. You’ll remember in that movie that there was no genetic engineering, only the selection of embryos with the best possible mix of the parents’ genes.
Given that scenario (of selection, not GATTACA overall) I don’t think I’d see any problem with giving my kid the best possible start. Besides, it’s still my kid, just the healthiest, smartest kid that I could naturally have. I can definitely see the potential for abuse, though, especially among parents who might try to force a kid to fulfill his potential in one area and not allowing the kid to develop normally. But hell, some parents do that now. What’s the difference?
Here’s a point, though- like any technology, this will be quite expensive at first. Any bets on how long it will take before the middle and lower classes can afford it, or how long before it’s mainstream outside of the developed world? Could a race of “supermen” in the industrialized West cement the poverty gap?
Most definitely. I’d leave hair and eye color and so forth to chance, but I would feel obligated to give my offspring as many genetic advantages as possible, as well as spare them of as many frailties as possible. I have no compunctions against playing god because I don’t much like the job God has done in the first place. Disrupting evolution doesn’t bother me either. Natural selection is a rather cruel (well, harshly dispassionate) process; hopefully artificial selection will be a lot kinder.
I’ll tell you what, my husband has perfect teeth.* Not only are they nice and straight, but in his life he has had ONE cavity. When he was 31.
I have horrible teeth. Before orthodontia they looked like a fallen-down stone fence. One of them came in at the base of my tongue. The canines on top came in looking exactly like fangs. (Okay, that was kind of cool. They don’t look like that anymore.) Not only did they look bad, but by the time I was about 11 I think every single one had at least one filling in it.
So can anyone guess whose teeth 3 out of 4 of my kids inherited? Mine.
If I could have selected characteristics just from those offered by me and my husband, I could have saved about $20,000 on teeth.
Since I never even seriously considered dating any guys who had BAD teeth, you could say I already attempted designer kids. It could work better, is all I have to say.
*He also has perfect vision.
In America it might have that effect; in much of the West, I’d expect an effort to make it available to the general population; that evil socialized medicine, you know. Which would naturally put America at a serious disadvantage.