Build-a-Baby: ABC Promotes Designer Baby Services
ABC has great news for anyone who ever wanted to shop for a mate and design their offspring at the same time. People who are looking for potential sperm or egg donors do not even need a catalog; they can head straight to the web.
In a web article June 23, ABC reported that BeautifulPeople.com, a dating site exclusively for attractive people, has launched a “virtual sperm and egg bank for people who want to have beautiful babies.”
“Launched this week, BeautifulPeople.com's new fertility forum is intended to give members and non-members (or 'ugly people') better odds of having good-looking children,” the report noted.
Reporter Ki Mae Heussner wrote off the service as an opportunity for parents “to secure every advantage for their child,” according to BeautifulPeople.com Managing Editor Greg Hodge. The report glossed over the moral implications of eugenics, only once mentioning the “ethically questionable” nature of the service.
Heussner quoted only one opponent of the site's new service.
This is not the first time ABC has covered the “designer baby” trend. The network visited the phenomenon on the March 3, 2009, “World News” broadcast.
“Imagine if you could choose your baby's traits the same way you pick clothes from a catalog,” ABC news reporter Gigi Stone said.
Stone's report gushed over Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, who has “pioneered” the idea of “Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis.” Stone boasted Steinberg had helped “thousands” of couples pre-determine their babies' gender and promised other customization options – eye color, hair color, height, etc. – would be available in just months.
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