Scientific Spirit: Can Romantics and Technophiles Reconcile Humanity's Love-Hate Relationship with Scientific Progress‪?‬

IN MARCH 2009 headlines blared across the front pages of New Yorks Daily News that were at once stimulating, scary, and altogether predictable. Dr. Jeff Steinberg, a doctor at the Fertility Institute, with offices in Los Angeles and New York, announced that within six months he would enable would-be parents to choose various traits for their babies, such as hair, eye, and even skin color. The science behind the procedure is a technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), which takes a cell from embryos produced by a couple in vitro and screens them for possible inherited genetic diseases. An embryo that passes the screening is then transferred into the mother's uterus for the subsequent pregnancy. Even though human traits are controlled by multiple genetic factors, PGD can also potentially be used to screen for cosmetically desired traits to a certain level of probability. The news brought forth the expected chorus of critics from religious groups to bioethicists, as well as from doctors who questioned whether Steinberg had the ability to fulfill his lofty ambition. (Incidentally, the procedure has already been banned in several countries including Germany, Ireland, and Switzerland.) In the face of the storm, Steinberg, who along with other fertility doctors already offers parents the opportunity to select their child's sex, withdrew his designer baby offer while also declaring in reference to his adversaries: "Genetic health is the wave of the future. It's already happening and it's not going to go away. It's going to expand. So if they got major problems with it, they need to sit down and really examine their own consciences because there's nothing that's going to stop it."