Custom-made babies

Life today: custom cars, pick the color; custom computers, pick the RAM; custom homes, pick the carpeting.

And now custom children? Pick the sex?

A new sperm-separation technique recently unveiled regurgitates a myriad of controversial terminology: cloning, test-tube babies and sex-selection.

Cloning has had a five-year moratorium placed on it, test-tube babies, too inconceivable for our society to imagine, yet sex selection is alive and kicking.

Geneticist Edward Fugger, of Genetics & IVF Institute in Fairfax, Va., and his collegues recently released a report in the journal Human Reproduction, claiming its fertility clinic has the capabilities to offer couples an 85 percent chance of conceiving a girl.

Some things need to be left to fate. Manipulating natural selection is going to lead to the destruction of uniqueness. Just because technology allows us to do something does not mean we should do it.

What if a trend erupts? If, say, boys become the popular choice? What kind of effects will this have on society?

Acceptance of sex-selection will only lead to the altercation of other features of children.

Nature does not have such preferences. Parents are looking for instant gratification, a way to change what has always been a mystery.

Babies should not be made by design, and their conception should not carry a price tag.