There’s a new documentary out about the population problem. Check out the trailer:
It lays out a provocative theory about this problem and how to solve it: Continue reading “Another Take on Solving the Population Problem” »
My interest in world population issues recently led me to John Taves. He runs Pacific Northwest Software and PickATime.com, but he’s also consumed with solving the world’s population problem. He is an example of the famous Margaret Mead quote: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; Continue reading “The “StopAtTwo” solution to the population problem” »
In addition to what I talked about in the last post, 3-parent IVF, there is another controversial procedure that enables “would-be parents to select the sex of a child with almost 100 per cent certainty through a technique called Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD). Also known as “Family Balancing,” it can be part of the IVF process. How does it work? Like ”regular” IVF, the woman is given big time hormones to produce several eggs. Then the eggs are taken out and mixed with the partner’s sperm. After three days… …the embryos are tested and scientists analyse chromosomes to identify the sex. Then only the embryos of the right sex are put back in the womb. Analyzing the chromosomes is supposed to be very accurate–99%, and if the woman gets pregnant with this procedure “will almost certainly have a baby of the desired sex.”
The procedure is legal is most U.S. states, Russia and the Middle East, but not everywhere, such as Great Britain, which sees problems with how this kind of IVF will “facilitate discriminatory social engineering”–or said another way, will be a step towards a future of designer babies.
On one hand I do see logic in something like this, as to not encourage parents to keep having more children until the parents get the sex they want. However, I have to oppose it when I think of the larger picture of condoning designer babies and ultimately human cloning.
Say what happens if PGD becomes the rage with celebs and a new trend is set that blond babies are in? Green eyes are in? Tall babies are in? Only babies of a specific skin tone? What if certain factions wanted to work toward a 2 to 1 ratio of men to women or women to men for their own crazy reasons?
Or not so crazy reasons. Look at China, which has already created a disproportionate distribution of gender without PGD IVF. Their one child policy and cultural disposition for boys (which has resulted in who knows how many forced abortions and female infanticide) has led to a disproportionate number of boys/young men/men, such that by ”2020 there will be 24 million more men than women” in this country. Good luck to the guys in finding mates with these kinds of numbers!
I land at feeling that if society allows for this kind of thing, and 3-parent IVF it will ultimately open the door to starting to control for all sorts of stuff in babies…ending with human cloning. Like a woman who commented on my facebook page, this has ”far too much potential for abuse. ” She also wisely says–”Do I understand people wanting to use that to have healthy children? Sure! But designer babies? No. You should be joyful about any child you get if you desire to be a parent.”
What do you think?
Scientists at Newcastle University have developed a new cloning technique called “three parent invitro fertilization (IVF).” It involves fixing malfunctioning mitochondrial DNA during the IVF fertilization process.
How this works is rather amazing yet concerning. Mitochondria are the “batteries” of cells, and when there is something wrong with this DNA it can lead to heart problems, brain disorders, and blindness. About one in 6,500 children are born with diseases related to malfunctioning mitochondrial DNA.
The faulty mitochondrial DNA is swapped out for good DNA from a donor egg, so the resulting embryo inherits genes from both its parents, and mitochondrial DNA from a second “mother” who donated the healthy egg. So you could say the child will technically end up with genes from three people, or have three parents.
While preventing disease is a good thing, and this technique seems to do it from literally the beginning, this cloning technique is a variation of what scientists did when they cloned the infamous Dolly, the first cloned sheep. If 3- way IVF cloning is allowed to be used, this question is not far behind: Will we see the day when we can not only have babies be born with no chance of disease, but with the physical attributes we want them to have? The brain we want them to have? 
In other words, how far we will go into the world of “designer babies?” In all likelihood designer babies are a ways off, but the thought remains unnerving.
On other fronts of concern, Joan Smith of the Independent makes great points; she says the idea of designer babies “worries me less than the flawed rationale behind fertility treatment, not to mention the industry’s cavalier disregard of its role in adding more children to our overcrowded world.”
The push for IVF in the first place needs a better look. The flawed rationales behind promoting fertility treatment include–if you are childless your life will never be “complete,” somehow you are a “failure” if you can’t have a baby, and are seen negatively in you choose to remain childless. Children are not what make everyone’s life complete, you are certainly not a failure because you can’t biologically have one with your partner, and a life that does not include parenthood can be just as fulfilling as a life that includes this experience.
Promoting pregnancy at all costs is also not the best thing for a world that is increasing in population to the point of unsustainability (or some experts believe we have already passed this point) even without the help of IVF. More people need to look harder at why they want IVF in the first place. Why do they want their own biological child so badly? What is the experience they want through biological parenthood, and is biological parenthood the only way to get this experience?
As scientists will undoubtedly continue to refine cloning, if more would-be parents could take a hard look at the myths about pregnancy and parenthood and why they have to have their own children to begin with, the world and the children already here just might end up better off.
What do you think?
