It has been announced that an Australian woman is currently pregnant with an IVF designer baby. The child was deliberately conceived to provide compatible bone marrow to treat the woman’s existing son, who suffers from a rare disease. Needless to say, this has caused an ethical furor.

This baby was created for spare parts. It is a desperate move by the parents to try to cure their son of Hyper IgM Syndrome. Apparently, compatible bone marrow from the new baby, when it is born, is the only hope. Using IVF treatment, many embryos were created from the parents. But only the one which could provide compatible bone marrow was implanted. In this case, a fertile couple has bypassed the natural process of “pot luck” to obtain a baby designed to meet specific characteristics.

Consider some of the ramifications of this move. Baby B will always be the one made to save Baby A. What if Baby A dies before Baby B is born? What if Baby A is not, after all, compatible and Baby B dies anyway? What if the procedure is a success, and then Baby A dies in a car crash on the way home from the hospital? As they grow to adulthood, how will Baby B feel about all this? Once his “useful purpose” has been attained, what then?

There is a current global outcry against human cloning. Stem cell research, which could hold the key to curing quadriplegia, is banned. Yet a baby can be manufactured with the sole purpose of providing parts for his brother. Perhaps if I was a doctor I might understand this better. But, to me, there is no difference. Sure, scientifically they would say that the processes differ in some small way. The basic fact is; they are playing God. This is selective breeding.

Perhaps it is right that society is outraged at this move. On the other hand, aren’t we being just a little hypocritical? Are we outraged because medical science has the ability to improve a hitherto incurable disease? If the treatment involved any other remedy but this, it would be hailed as revolutionary and wonderful.

A life was created, not primarily for its own sake. The main aim here was not that the parents dearly wished for a baby to love and cherish. It may well be, and probably is, that the parents will love and cherish Baby B. But that’s not the point. Baby B was made for a purpose other than that.

So, folks, lets consider some other scenarios. During the baby boom of the 1950’s and ‘60’s, there were many large families. I came from one, and most of our friends had many siblings - especially sisters. My mother and most of her friends wanted sons. For some reason, sons were more highly prized than daughters. So, they kept on having babies until the son and heir was born. Or the son and spare. There were not so many families of five or six sons. Once they had their two boys, they stopped. Given the opportunity, most of these women would have had their two boys and maybe one girl, and left it there. Don’t tell me that lack of access to the pill caused this. Why then was it rare to find a woman with only two daughters, yet you frequently had families of only two sons?

Coming back to the present, a study of single teenage mothers in the industrial city of Whyalla, South Australia, last year established what we have long suspected: that, overwhelmingly, teenage girls deliberately become pregnant solely to obtain social welfare benefits. These babies are created for money. Multiple pregnancies are a lucrative career move for high-school dropouts. Can this be considered any more ethical than creating Baby B? At least Baby B will serve a useful purpose (we hope).

Society is at a point where several big issues must be tackled, and quickly. Philosophical think tanks go around and around in circles for years while medical science is leaping forward. At the same time, political expedience sets the scene for future social disintegration with its ill-considered welfare policies. In previous generations, the arbiter of moral correctness was religion. But who listens to that anymore?

It all comes down to the individual, you and me. Speak out if you object to such designer babies as Baby B. But remember to be consistent. Remember: Babies X, Y, Z in Whyalla, and their millions of counterparts around the world. What will we do about them too?

Doesn’t this all fit neatly in the “Too Hard” basket?