Los Angeles (ECN) - In the wake of Nadya Suleman’s octuplet controversy another debate is heating up, this time concerning the possibility of selecting a child’s physical traits, such as hair and eye color. Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, a fertility doctor with clinics in Los Angeles and Manhattan, has come under fire for offering to help parents build what have been termed “designer babies”.
Dr. Steinberg has routinely helped his patients choose their child’s gender, but hasn’t yet preformed procedures to customize a child’s physical appearance for cosmetic reasons. He stresses that there isn’t a 100% guarantee that parents will be able to predetermine a child’s traits.
Some doctors have regarded these claims with skepticism and concern about the ethical ambiguity of custom designing human beings. "It's seeing babies as commodities," said Dr. Michael Grodin, Director of Medical Ethics at Boston University's School of Public Health. "The question is whether we'll see babies meeting the fantasies or interests of the family, the parents, rather than seeing babies for what they are in and of themselves."
Some critics are concerned by the Brave New World aspect of using technology to achieve genetic perfection, describing the slippery slope to a future society divided into the physically superior - and the rest. "Are the rich going to be able to do it and the poor not? Are we going to create a sort of subpopulation of the genetically perfect as against everybody else?" asks Art Caplan, a University of Pennsylvania ethicist.
Dr. Steinberg has since limited his offer to families with a history of genetic diseases.
