Expert: Father Dave Bechtel - 12/7/2011

Question
Dear Father Dave,
I am doing some research on a project for school centered around my main question of, "Should Parents be allowed to choose the genetic make-up of their child?"
I am focusing on both the use of genetic selection to prevent children from being born with genetic diseases but i am also planning to touch on the issues surrounding 'Designer Babies' and 'Organ Farming'.
I would like both your opinion and the opinion of the church on this issue to provide both another viewpoint and moral guidance for my piece.
Thank you!
Your's Faithfully Peggy

Answer
Life is not a commodity to be "designed" by our personal taste and desires.  Every life is a unique gift from God.

It might be one thing to correct a faulty gene to prevent disease or correct another issue.  Correction of problems is one thing, "designing" human life, or "selecting" specific genes is quite another.  Doing so, and life is reduced to a product rather then a gift.

I also note that simply because one has a certain genetic makeup does not entail that the person will fulfill that particular makeup.  For example: I might have good genes for intelligence, but it does not follow I am going to develop that intelligence. Genes as I understand it simply give us dispositions for certain things.  We however still have to develop those things. One might be born with a genetic predisposition towards alcoholism but it does not follow such a person will become an alcoholic.  

The teaching of the Church therefore is that genetic "selection" and "Designer Babies" would be immoral practices because it turns human life into a product, or commodity.  However correcting problems---that is to say correcting a faulty gene is a different matter.

Organ farming is as far as I understand it moral---so long as one is not using immoral practices to do so.  For example: if a scientist can take a piece of a heart muscle, place it into a petri dish and have it somehow grow into a new heart that is fine.  However cloning a person in order to use the organs would not be moral. "Test Tube" babies would also not be moral. Using your own cells to grow a new organ is moral.  Using someone else's cells to grow a new organ is moral provided of course the person consents.