In a medium sized room, large, plasma televisions are posted on every wall displaying HD photos of babies that all appear to be absolutely perfect. With eager anticipation, a young couple glares at the large screens in the waiting room as they wait to see their fertility doctor. With a contagious smile flashed across her face, the doctor’s assistant calls for the anxious couple, “Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, the doctor is now ready to see you! ” The couple jumps up in excitement and follows the petite assistant into the doctor’s office.
The doctor greets them with handshakes and then they are handed a “Create your own Child” form with the dangers printed in fine print at the bottom of the sheet; the couple then begins to request the physical features they desire their future bundle of joy to possess. Although creating a child through an unnatural process will be intriguing for parents like Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, this process is also quite disturbing for other parents. As technology continues to advance daily, it will also continue to shape and alter the world.
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, scientist, Victor Frankenstein develops a creature out of curiosity that he later regrets creating. Victor unnaturally brings the monster to life and then abandons his technological invention due to the creature’s unappealing appearance. Shelley’s Frankenstein reveals the dangers behind technological advancements while also exposing society’s obsession of physical attributes; she shows how society obsesses more over the way one looks rather than who one is as a person.
The new “build your own baby” concept helps further society’s unhealthy obsession of deeming what is “appealing to the eye” by allowing parents to alter the genes of their unborn child; technology becomes monstrous when it can take a natural process such as reproduction and turn it into an unnatural process such as “design your own baby”“. With the help of modern technology, the media stresses the importance of a person’s physical appearance to society; due to the popular idea of being “perfect,” nobody wishes to be, feel or look as our culture would call “ugly. The term “ugly” has been distorted over time, and is currently used to describe anything that does not appear to seem perfect in the eyes of the media. Society rejects what is not “appealing to the eye,” and accepts what is “appealing to the eye. ” In Frankenstein, the creature is constantly rejected because of his outer appearance. Victor, the monster’s creator, claims that “a mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch” (Shelley 59). Since the beginning of the creature’s existence, he has experienced the burdens of being unloved due to his “monstrous” appearance.
In contrast, Victor’s parents get attached to Elizabeth because of her alluring looks, she is, “a creature who seemed to shed radiance from her looks and whose form and motions were lighter than the chamois of the hills … they were fond of the sweet orphan” (Shelley 17). The monster and Elizabeth both carry the traits of an innocent child, yet one is accepted over the other simply because of looks. With this “build your own baby,” doctors can alter the traits as well as the genetic makeup of embryos.
According to successful experimentation, a doctor will be able to remove any hazardous or malfunctioning genetic disease within the developing baby. Genetic engineering, which is “the artificial manipulation, modification, and recombination of DNA or other nucleic acid molecules in order to modify an organism or population of organisms,” involving the manipulation of DNA came about in 1973 when Stanley N. Cohen and Herbert W. Boyer injected genes into E. coli bacteria that then reproduced (Genetic Engineering).
This experiment was the catalyst to DNA manipulation in animals and human bodies and eventually to today’s designer baby concept. It is predicted that doctors will breed healthy babies that are free of malfunctions and lifelong diseases in years to come. With the aid of science and technology, Victor unnaturally brings the “monstrous” looking creature to life, and with the help of science and technology again, a fertility doctor can unnaturally bring “perfected” people to life. Society strives to create a world full of “perfect people” through unnatural yet newly advanced ways. Build your own baby” is a new concept that not only allows parents to select the desired gender and physical features of their baby but eventually will allow parents to alter the personality traits of their child as well. Willing parents could pay money to have the opportunity to control how their children carry themselves. Society has already given people the idea that “perfection” is a necessity, and so with this concept parents will expect to create the perfect child through this new technological process.
In the article “Children to order: The Ethics of ‘Designer Babies” written by Tia Ghose, Thomas Murray stated that “if we let parents think they are actually choosing and controlling [their child’s outcome], then we set up all that dynamic of potentially tyrannical expectations over what the child will do or be. ” (Ghose). Certain parents unknowingly try to control every aspect of their child’s life; parents desire the best for their children, but some parents go about desiring the best for their children in the wrong ways by not letting their children live and learn from their own mistakes.
Some will argue that this concept of building your own baby will further the control parents already have over their children. Ghose argues that, “it’s possible that giving parents the ability to select the genetic traits of their offspring could subtly worsen the relationship between parents and children” (Ghose). Ghose’s argument regarding parent’s expectations of their unborn genetically modified child connects to the unhealthy relationship between the creator and his monster due to the prior expectations the creator had of the monster before it was even a living being.
Victor shares his experience after creating the monster, “I beheld the wretch – the miserable monster whom I had created… I remained … listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably given life” (Shelley 35). Due to the disappointment in the results of the creation, Victor abandons his monster which causes the creature to suffer from abandonment. Parents will technically become the child’s “creator” by having the power to designate how their child will appear on the outside and possibly the inside.
In the article “The Prospect of Designer Babies: Is it Inevitable? ” by Michael Catalano, he quotes that “being a good parent is surely not about enhancing our children but about enhancing our children’s lives through making them feel loved, accepted and wanted. ” (Catalano). Aside from modern times, during the Renaissance era, the title “creator” when talking about bringing something to life is a term that many believed characterized God and God alone; Thus explaining Shelley’s belief that life created without God’s doing is both unnatural and unethical, deeming the process of genetic engineering as unethical.
Furthermore, “design your own baby” can be modernly seen as an ethical invention for parents who desire genetically modifying their child to ensure the child’s overall health as opposed to altering their child for desired physical features Although one could argue that designing a child is bizarre, scientists claim that the ethical becomes valid when technology can take someone’s life and change it for the better. Doctors claim that genetically modifying children could also lead to reducing the amount of children born with genetic diseases and extra chromosomes.
This advancement of technology could improve the overall health of future generations to come by stopping malfunctions before they fully develop in growing embryos. Today, one in every 150 babies is diagnosed with a chromosomal disorder at birth. The March of Dimes campaign reports that “every year an estimated 8 million children–6 percent of total births worldwide–are born with a serious birth defect of genetic or partially genetic origin” (March of Dimes).
Disorders like Down syndrome, which is the most common chromosomal disease, affects individuals’ intellectual abilities, and physical features. Usually, children with genetic diseases are affected in the way they interact and live their lives on a daily basis. It could be said that children born with genetic disorders miss out on participating in certain activities that most children are capable of participating in, such as sports and other extracurricular activities. Furthermore, older parents are more ne to having children born with genetic disorders.
Due to this scientific fact, having children at an older age could be alarming to older individuals wishing to have children; this development could allow older parents to still have children without worrying about the possible health of their unborn children. Parents of developing embryos desire to give birth to healthy children so that they can live a “healthy” life. Genetic diseases affect the lives of families daily all across the world, and this advancement could help unborn children live “normal” lives without having to face the complications of genetic disorders.
Currently, cures for genetic disorders are non-existent, therefore this advancement could act as cure. Expert Professor Julian Savulescu stated his opinion in the article “Genetically engineering ‘ethical’ babies is a moral obligation, says Oxford professor” by Richard Alleyne; he said that “If we have the power to intervene in the nature of our offspring — rather than consigning them to the natural lottery — then we should” (Alleyne). However, Shelly might agree that the goal of halting diseases sounds ingenious at first, but it is inevitably bound for destruction.
In Frankenstein, Victor originally believes that he has discovered the secret to life itself. He feels he has accomplished something that could change humankind for the better, “No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world” (Shelly 32). The idea behind lowering the rate of children born with genetic conditions is wise, but
Shelley would still stand on her argument. Just as Victor created a monster for science, it turned into a disastrous invention. The mystery behind altering the malfunctioning genes of embryos to replace with healthy ones could possibly turn into a monstrous situation. Humankind is created and should remain imperfect creatures according to Shelley states “we are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves — such a friend ought to be — do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures” (Shelley 14).
Shelly even uses Victor to warn readers towards the end of the novel to “Seek happiness in tranquility and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries” (200). Some critics would say her argument is outdated but others would agree with her argument still being valid. Shelley encourages humankind to enjoy what life for what it is and to not get too involved with inquires of technology.
Her view point still has a valid place for our modern world by revealing the hidden dangers behind giving technology too much power. Shelley would be disappointed to see parents designing their children to “look better. ” This advancement furthers the obsession over physical features. Shelley would undoubtedly desire to see a world full of healthy, beautiful children, but not in the unnatural way that scientist are pushing. The world is vastly changing and is becoming dangerously more dependent upon technology every day.
The views on science have changed since the Renaissance era, but Shelley’s argument still stands valid today. Technology is resourcefully beneficial until it becomes solely dependent upon by mankind; the line between what is deemed as ethical and unethical is crossed when society completely depends on a manmade source rather than depending on the knowledge and gifts that humankind was naturally given. Genetic engineering takes the natural and makes it unnatural, virtually crossing the ethical line that Shelley vastly warns readers about in Frankenstein.
She worries that technology will be given too much power, as it is given through the concept of “designer babies. ” Playing God in any circumstance can lead to sudden destruction as Shelley reveals in her novel. The doctor looks at the happy couple’s face drop as they noticed the disclaimer written in fine print at the bottom of handout that was given to them. In agreement, the couple rethinks their decision on altering the genes of their unborn child and decides to let take nature takes its course.
