DESIGNER CHILDRENThere have been many social opinions on the topic of designer children, which include a scientific point of view. Engineered children are those whose parents may make the reckless decision to genetically alter their child so that they do not develop the genetic disorders that many of us suffer today. Using in vitro fertilization or in vitro fertilization as a method of altering genes, doctors have been able to "tailor" unborn children to represent or eliminate certain characteristics. What is a designer baby and how are they made? By definition, a “designer baby” is a genetically modified unborn child. They are basically children who have been “designed” with the desired sex or characteristics. Scientists continue to learn more about the human genome, and as they do so , reproductive technology continually advances to levels we never imagined. Researchers linked to Bionet point out: Advanced reproductive techniques involve the use of in vitro fertilization (IVF), which is the fertilization of eggs by sperm in "test tubes". outside the mother's body in a laboratory. You can choose the type of sperm (X or Y) that fertilizes an egg, which is used to determine the sex and genes of the baby the selected embryos are reimplanted into the mother's womb. This technique is called Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis or PGD (Bionet par. 2) Michael Lemonick, writer for Time, shows in his article “Designer Babies” that these techniques allow doctors and parents to reduce the possibility that a child will be born with a genetic disease. It must catch on because approximately 25,000 children are born through in vitro fertilization in the United States each year (Lemonick para. 16). And not only is it like an extravagant shopping experience… middle of paper… it would no longer be a human being, but a property. This is inhumane and we must make sure it doesn't happen by letting this technology be recklessly abused. References Bailey, Ronald. “Long live designer babies!” Reason Online March 6, 2002. November 19, 2005 http://www.reason.com/rb/rb030602.shtml. Bionet. November 19, 2005 http://www.bionetonline.og/English/Content/db_cont1.htmAlma College Lib., Alma, MI. November 20, 2005 Lemonick, Michael. “Designer children”. Time January 11, 1999: 64-67.ReadersGuideAbs. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989987,00.html McKibben, Bill. “Design-a-kid”. Christian Century May 17, 2003: 22-28. First article. http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2708 Brownlee, Shannon. “Designer children”. Washington Monthly, March 2002 http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0203.brownlee.html