Results tagged “eugenics”

Yesterday's story about a fertility doctor's plan to help parents choose the eye and hair color of their babies triggered "a flood of calls" from would-be procreators eager for designer infants. But doctor Jeff Steinberg is still at least six months away from offering the service, and in a follow-up he tells the Daily News that for now, "We're going to limit it to people with genetic diseases because we just cannot keep up with what's going on." His institute also pulled an announcement about the controversial service from the website; the ad trumpeted: "PREDICTIVE GENOMICS TO BE AVAILABLE: Eye color, hair color, cancer tendency and more." These babies are insaaaaane! Besides offering genetic customization for parents with family histories of albinism and other disorders, Steinberg will still help parents predetermine their child's gender, a service that's already available at other clinics. But really this was all just an excuse to publish this photo of Steinberg, which might provide some clue as to the source of the good doctor's passion for genetic engineering.

Don't tell Octomom: Within six months, a fertility clinic with offices in NY and LA will begin letting parents choose the eye and hair color of their babies. Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, who helped produce the first test-tube baby, says he's already helped thousands of parents choose their child's gender, and further manipulation of infants' genes—known in the biz as preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD—is inevitable. Of course, right-to-life advocates are outraged because embryos deemed undesirable will be destroyed. And Dr. Daniel Sulmasy, director of ethics at New York Medical College, tells the Daily News, "We're crossing the line into eugenics, the theory of trying to give people enhanced characteristics—genetic engineering to make sort of the superman or superwoman." But Steinberg shrugs off such hand-wringing: "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've 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." Steinberg concluded the interview by screwing his bionic arm into his shoulder socket and thrashing the genetically-inferior News reporter to within an inch of his life.