In Support of Designer Babies in China - Essay Example

This instance involved a shift in population policy away from Leninist family planning policy to softer neo-liberal methods, which involved indirect regulation by the state and self-regulation by citizens. Starting in 1956, the Ministry of Public Health oversaw a yearlong campaign for the use of birth control. However, these efforts portended minimal effects on fertility rates and the period following Great Leap Years saw a rapid population increase (Hesketh 12), which eventually necessitated the One Child Policy as a way to counter population growth.

However, this policy has led ethical and moral dilemmas concerning gender and physical selection by parents who only have one try at parenthood. Out of the remaining alternatives for the Chinese government, genetic selection is the best choice to reduce control population, while solving the problem of sex-selection abortion and inherited diseases.One of the most visible effects of China’s One Child Policy is that parents have turned to sex-selected abortions in their search for boys, rather than girls.

Various surveys carried out within China paint a grim situation with 117 boys born to every 100 girls because of sex selection abortions (Hesketh 62), while normal births resulted in a ratio of 105:100. Other surveys have found that Chinese women who migrated to Beijing in the last two decades arrived with only one hundred girls compared to one hundred and fifty nine boys. This shows that males are favored to girls in China, which has resulted in an increase of sex-selected abortions. However, by using genetic selection, parents would have the ability to choose the sex of their children prior to conception.

This would result in a decrease of women influenced by the One Child policy to seek abortions and try again for a boy (Hesketh 63). Although this would not address the looming gender-imbalance in China, it will present women with a more harmless tool in determining the sex of their child. Genetic selection can also allow Chinese parents to have their only child with the characteristics they desire, which would reduce China’s growing population. With the largest growing population in the world, the government of China tried to institute regulations that sought to prevent further growth, causing controversy and general discontent about the laws (Orleans 44).

The government and population would benefit from genetic selection in various ways with the government reducing population growth and the parents having their characteristic children. Parents who wish for children with specific heights, skill sets, athletic ability, and personal tendencies would be free to use genetic selection, rather than aborting their infants. Projection of the human genome could provide China and its people the ability to predict their future in terms of population growth and make-up (Orleans 45).

Genetic selection will allow for screening out and in specific genes within the mother’s embryo, making it possible to influence the natural characteristics of a child. Finally, gene selection could help China in reducing the number of unhealthy or disabled children. A recent study showed that there was minimal protest at the decision made, in the mid-2000s, to allow couples to test embryos for breast cancer genes and inherited bowel disease, which pushed humanity towards the creation of designer babies with healthy genes (Savulescu 39).

Genetic selection will prevent the only child a family in China is allowed to have from having inherited disease. Some of the most common diseases among Chinese children are Down’s syndrome and cystic fibrosis and with genetic selection,