Perfection

Perfection, it’s what we all chase, that dream job, flawless family and a picture perfect life. In a world where science lets us rewrite and erase flaws before they appear, remove our hardships before we even face them, would we still recognize the beauty of imperfection? We are not born with the capability to empathize, or the wisdom to differentiate right from wrong. These are not traits pre-written into our genes but lessons learned through raw experience and hardship. I fear these children will not be created but crafted, and although it may sound harsh, parallels to the story of Frankenstein. In a world where life is written before these infants even take their first breath, we risk the children themselves growing up to wonder why they weren’t enough as they were.

With gene editing technologies like CRISP, the line between natural and engineered life begins to blur. The idea of “designer baby” will no longer be the question of what if, but which one. The idea of choosing a child's traits may seem ideal on the surface, but the deeper you explore the more unsettling it becomes. What begins as a grip on the ideal quickly blurs and questions the morality of how much you're willing to change to achieve it, and what pieces of humanity you're willing to lose in the process. That crooked smile inherited from your dad or the sweet tooth passed down from your mom may not be ideal, but is human. You are the combination of hundreds of people, generation after generation who fell in love with those exact “flaws”. If perfection becomes the goal we lose the very flaws that make us real. Our individuality, our story, will become rewritten with this genetic code that society decided is the most desirable. And with these standards constantly changing it won't be long until even the ones “made perfect”, may no longer fit the blueprint.