3 Mar 2009, 0011 hrs IST, AGENCIES


A clinic in Los Angeles is offering the ultimate in designer babies. Want a son with brown eyes, black hair and a dark complexion? Or a
pale-skinned, blonde, green-eyed daughter?

The Fertility Institutes clinic is offering prospective parents the opportunity to select physical traits of future offspring thanks to “cosmetic medicine”, reports the Telegraph. But other fertility experts are outraged that the clinic is seeking to capitalise on dramatic advances in embryo cell analysis designed to identify dangerous diseases and defects in the unborn.

They are angered that the bespoke baby in vitro fertilisation service is distracting public attention from how the pioneering medical technology can have children free of debilitating genetic conditions. Clinic director Jeff Steinberg, who as a young medic was part of the team involved in the birth in Britain in 1978 of Louise Brown, the world’s first test tube baby, is undeterred.

“It’s incredibly exciting. I live in LA and everyone here wants to have a straight nose and high cheekbones and are perfectly happy to pay for cosmetic surgery.” ,” Brown told the Sunday Telegraph.

“I understand the trepidation and concerns, but we cannot escape the fact that science is moving forward. If I have to get smacked around by people who think it is inappropriate, then I’m willing to live with that.” he added.

Steinberg’s clinic, the world’s largest provider of the process of gender choice, has received “five or six” requests from couples for the new service which involves embryo selection, not genetic modification. He expects the first trait selection baby to be born next year and the cost for the process to be $18,000.

The science is based on a procedure which is known as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) that for years has allowed doctors to identify potentially lethal diseases and conditions in embryos.