Dr. Brick Lantz of the Christian Medical Association says the idea of creating a perfect son or daughter is nothing new. But as the Center for Genetics and Society points out, designing babies is riddled with problems.
"We've been designing babies … ever since the beginning of ART, or assisted reproductive technology," he notes. "The most publicly known ART is IVF, or in vitro fertilization."
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is also being used to identify genetic defects in embryos before implantation.
"Human beings have been choosing which baby we want," Dr. Lantz summarizes. "When you add artificial insemination, so not using the biological mother and father, then you're also doing some gene selection."
Meanwhile, a company on the East Coast is paying female college students tens of thousands of dollars to harvest their eggs for gamete donation.
Dr. Lantz recognizes it is the "human condition" to want to profit from new technology, but overall – not just bioethically, but particularly as a Christian – this is "certainly departing from God's design."
"The basis is how we view children," he submits. "Children are a gift from God. That's real explicit throughout the Old and New Testament."
He mentions Jesus' reception of children in Mark 10 and the Psalm 127:5 description of the man whose quiver is full of them as "blessed."
Conversely, this selective gene editing views children as "a commodity to be purchased, a commodity to develop, to engineer – a commodity to make perfect."
He adds, though, that when an infertile married couple pursues ART or IVF to follow God's design, that is quite different. There are recommended guidelines to help couples take that route while following God's mandate.
For example, the biological gametes of the mother and the father are used.
"You don't use donated, and you don't freeze the embryos," he says. "In other words, you don't select which fertilized embryo is going to be used."
Dr. Lantz asserts that life begins at fertilization.
