PGD Clinics: Where Dreams Come True Many parents-to-be dream about what physical and intellectual traits their child may have and how those traits will affect the child later in life. If the child is athletic then they will be healthy, if they are smart they will have a good job, if they are attractive then life will be easier for them, the list goes on and on. These ideas may or may not be realized, but regardless, the parents love their child all the same. However, by using new trait selection technology, future parents may turn their dreams into a reality. Through a procedure called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) parents can target certain genes in their potential child and do everything from choosing gender, to turning off genes for disabilities and disorders, to changing eye color. While these procedures may seem miraculous, they are potentially exceedingly dangerous to the metal state of the child and to society, in addition to running very close to the fine ethical line of playing God. While parents may say that they support their child 100% in everything they do, the reality is that most parents have a preconceived idea for what their child’s life ought to be like and become slightly saddened if their child does not wish to follow this path. Parents eventually realize that it is the child’s life, not their own, and they learn to allow their child to do as they wish. Except imagine if the child was physically designed to be someone that they do not wish to be. If a child was created to be an athlete, but has a passion for the arts, what do they decide to develop? The amount of pressure that a child would feel from his parents saying, “You were literally born to play football” would be extreme enough to defer the child’s dreams of the theater and instead participate in an activity that is not enjoyable for him. Or if the child did have the courage to stand up to his parents, there would no doubt be chaos within their house hold. But parents know best, right? Assuming that desirable traits are somewhat universal, competition would start among families to see who could produce the most perfect child. Additionally, children of parents who chose not to use PGD may feel inferior compared to the “perfect” children. “If we’re going to produce children who are claimed to be superior because of their particular genes, we risk introducing new sources of discrimination,” says Marce Darnovsky, associate executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society. (Naik) For