One thing that's always fascinated me about Frankenstein's monster is the way Victor created him with the intention of beauty and surpassing perfection. However, the end result was something ghastly. I can't help but think of the ability to design exactly what your offspring will look like, with the modern day concept of "Designer Babies."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989987,00.html
http://www.scienceprogress.org/2011/04/one-step-closer-to-designer-babies/
The first article provided is much older, but it introduces the concept of genetic modifications to embryos before they begin to develop, in order to create exactly the effect parents want. Although initially, said modifications were limited to adjusting gender, this article speculates that "within two decades" there could be ways to adjust height, hair and eye color, body type, personality - anything a parent could want to choose about their child.
The second article, much more recently posted, explains developments in "noninvasive" prenatal testing. This new, safer, and easier way of testing the mother's blood at 5 weeks is under development and being tested for commercial use.
Currently, they are only releasing it to test for certain disabilities, such as Down syndrome. The article is quick to point out that no testing is foolproof (yet), because statistics can be misleading. Parents could decide to terminate a pregnancy because of a disability their child could develop. (Tie in to the abortion posts from earlier.)
All of this information aside, these two articles and the idea of Designer Babies (think Brave New World) can be a little scary, and it leads me to two different trains of thought, one relating to Frankenstein and one relating to our modern world.
Victor essentially creates his own Designer Baby when he builds his creature. Is that moral? Is it wrong to choose what you think is the most attractive quality to put in your child? Should parents be able to choose that for their children? And should Victor be able to take action now that the choices he made did not turn out the way he wanted them to? Likewise, if a parent uses genetic modification to create their "perfect child" and something goes wrong, can they hold it against the child, or do anything to change that? Does it deny a fetus (designation of "human" is based on your personal beliefs) any basic human rights to their own DNA if a parent wants to define their standard of beauty, either inward or outward, and then apply it to that fetus, or is it the right of the parent to make that decision? Is this just a step into the future, and a way to use technology?
