While having sex is not required to make babies now because of in vitro fertilization, an emerging technology called in-vitro gametogenesis or IVG takes human reproduction to a whole new level, and ethicists all over the world are squirming.
The process involves converting cells from virtually any part of the body into sperm or egg cells. Those cells can then grow and flourish, resulting in engineered offspring with predetermined characteristics. It has already been done successfully with mice and experts predict that manufactured people may be no more than 10 years away.
Once the bugs are worked out, not only will infertile couples be able to have a child, gay couples can as well, with their kids biologically related to their parents just like those from a male and a female.
Theoretically 90 year old couples will also be able to produce children, making a biological clock nonexistent. Babies would be able to have babies, and so would dead people.
Regulatory hurdles will no doubt be thrown up to prevent the abuse of this technology, but once the science is perfected, someone, somewhere in the world will most likely set up a factory to make perfect, flawless, intellectually superior babies with no risk of abnormalities.
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