Critical Analysis Blog Post for “Designer Babies” by Patricia Smith

Critical Analysis Blog Post for “Designer Babies” by Patricia Smith

            The article “Designer Babies” by Patricia Smith explains that the day in which parents can select how their babies will look and be like is not far off and the possibility of such a thing happening is raising many ethical questions whether and how much we tamper with the way humans reproduce. Patricia Smith is trying to describe the situation to the reader and have the readers decide if parents being able to design a perfect baby a good idea? Smith uses many techniques to get her point across. The first of these techniques is explaining that may people are for the “designer baby”. She includes a quote from Dr. Alan Cooperman, director of the reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, saying, “Every time we get a little closer to genetic tinkering to promote health—that’s exciting and scary. People are afraid that it will turn into a dystopian brave new world. The most exciting part scientifically is to be able to fix or prevent an error in genetic machinery.” But Patricia Smith explains that also any more people are against the “designer baby”.  She says, “But others are sounding alarm bells”. Jeremy Gruber, president of the Council for Responsible Genetics makes the point that you’re permanently altering the genome of an individual and that will also become inheritable. He also says that he fears the procedure could take away positive traits. Josephine Johnson, an ethicist at the Hastings Center in New York says, “But the changes that play into social advantage, I hope people will pause and reconsider. It’s hard to know how you would resist the temptation to do those things, because they are the things that promise to give your child the edge in the competitive world.” All of the points she includes are very strong points to consider for a Socrates’ Café. The third technique that Patricia Smith uses to get her pint across is just to add plain old facts that support or diffuse the points made. She says, “Diseases that result from genetic defects…affect 12 million people in the United States alone. Scientists have already isolated the defective genes… holds out the possibility that some horrible disease could become a thing of the past.” She also includes a fact that states that some countries including Canada, Australia, France and Denmark have made laws preventing scientists from altering the human genome but in the U.S. there is no such type of law. She also adds that traits like intelligence, athleticism, and sociability are very complex and involve interactions between many different genes, and scientists are still far from knowing what those genes are and how they affect behavior. My question is then how do they plan on making the designer baby? She also adds another craft ad that is talking and relating the topic to history. She describes that history is full of examples of genetic science running amok. She also says the troubling past is why some people are saying ethical boundaries must be made.

            With this article Patricia Smith really wanted to explain to the reader that the topic of a “Designer Baby” is very controversial ethically. She wants to show the reader the day in which parents can chose how their children will turn out is near and many people aren’t taking it lightly. Some are for it while many are against it from happening for the many reasons I described in the above paragraph. She uses many craft moves to achieve this goal. One writing move that many people that are writing articles about serious topics use is using quotes from important people. Throughout the whole article Patricia Smith quotes many important people including: Dr. Alan Copperman, director of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City; Jeremy Gruber, president of the Council for Responsible Genetics, a bioethics group; Zhao Bowen, who id the twenty-one year old who heads the research project; and Josephine Johnson, an ethicist at the Hastings Center in Hudson, New York. All of these people have a title that makes them official, that makes their words trustworthy, and that gives the overall writing of the article an “official and trustworthy stamp” source. When readers read the names of those quoted and the title connected to those names they immediately get the affect I just described. Another craft the Patricia Smith uses to complete her goal is use a drawing of a potential “designer baby” dressed up as a superhero. It’s meant to be funny but send a message. The cute, blue cap-wearing baby almost seems like a joke or a fantasy but by putting it with her writing Patricia Smith is trying to say to the reader-no- this is a reality and sooner or later it will happen. When the reader looks at it they get a laugh out of it but also take into consideration: what is a perfect baby? Is this a joke or reality? It connects to the writing which is trying to stress that it’s a reality. Patricia Smith’s other craft is her subtitle. It says, “Science may soon allow parents to assemble a more perfect baby. Is that a good idea?” This lets the reader decide his answer before reading the rest of the article but also going into the article with his own perspective and then learning the facts. Another craft that Patricia Smith uses is a final idea to leave the reader thinking. Her final statement is a quote from Jeremy Gruber saying, “We’re still far enough away to make sure we have appropriate safeguards in place to make sure science is used in the public interest. We have the time to do that, but there doesn’t seem to be enough interest.” Usually when an author ends with a quote they agree with it. So Jeremy Gruber and Patricia Smith for ending with the quote, agree that there’s time to stop this “designing babies” from happening but that the reader needs to take action to get the story to the rest of the world to gain interest in the topic and to ultimately work together to stop a “designer baby” from happening. Another craft move that Patricia Smith uses is an introduction that begins with a “What if…” statement. She begins the article by saying, “What if parents could select the traits their children will be endowed with, picking from a catalog of options like ‘tall’, ‘high IQ’, ‘athletic’, or ‘musical’?” This introduction is used as a transition into the article; Patricia Smith uses it to get into the whole “It is possible…” story. She used the “what if…” statement as a transition. And in this way all of these craft moves work together to meet what Patricia Smith wants the reader to think and feel after reading the article.

            I find this topic very interesting and worthy of going under debate as being a very controversial topic. Patricia Smith seems to be against the “designer baby” and I’m going to have to agree for ethical reasons. I feel like it will be a very big scientific break-through if it happens I just think it is unethical to happen. I ‘m going to have to say Patricia Smith’s writing techniques and craft moves convinced me.