There has been a medical advance made recently in the world of infertility medicine and its causing a renewal of old concerns about society seeking to create "designer babies". The advance is that scientists have successfully altered the genetics of a human embryo for the first time in history. The backlash is that a large number of people are seeking to stop this advance from moving forward as a result of fears that this will cause people to want to design their own babies in a specific way.
"But an author of the study says the work was focused on stem cells. He notes that the researchers used an abnormal embryo that could never have developed into a baby anyway ... Colleagues did the work with an embryo that had extra chromosomes, making it nonviable." (source)
People with concerns say that the point isn't so much what the researchers have already done but what the potential is for this type of medical procedure to develop. Others say that the progress it could offer to other researchers exploring stem cell research and infertility medicine are invaluable.
Question of the Day: Is it wrong to genetically modify the human embryo if it leads to advances in fertility treatment?
