Last week a really interesting film was released in India titled “Apna Aasman.” This particular film revolves around the theme of science and technology and the basic premise on which this particular film is based is how far you would be willing to go to make a genius out of your child.

Starring Shobhna and Irrfan khan the film explores the anguish of parents who are perfectly normal in every respect whose child is autistic.

In the film a scientist develops an injectible substance that has the power to alter the brain’s cells that are responsible for coherent thought. The guinea pig in the movie is the autistic son who on being injected with the substance. The outcome contrary to expectation is that the son becomes a mathematical genius but the side effect is that his capacity to feel becomes jaded and slowly dies out altogether.

Although the film is a work of fiction and so far there is no known substance that can actually produce the results shown in the movie, any thinking human being would be able to make the connection between the parents drive for the perfect son and the concept of designer babies that is slowly but surely gaining legitimacy in the guise of preventing life threatening diseases.

Designer babies are babies whose traits such as physical appearance, sex, eye color and some scientists claim that they would even be able to select the level of mental activity of the child.

Without going into the technical modalities of the entire situation take a moment too think about the implications of such a move. Would it really result in a designer baby or would it result in a grotesque travesty of human life as we know it?

What if the individual that is born has no feelings at all. On all other levels he or she would be perfect but if they are devoid of human emotion, then what? How are you going to justify the outcome? Can you justify the out come?

Personally I don’t think so. But parents in search of perfection would be a difficult lot to convince. Today even kids are status symbols and they are representative of their parents’ second chance at life.

Even without the advent of designer babies we have pushy mothers who would be willing to go to any length to make a star out of their kids. You little kids being paraded in adult outfits in kiddy fashion shows.

Imagine what would happen if science and technology got into the fray. What exactly are we trying to achieve here? The perfect human being? And isn’t that a misnomer? “To err is human.” Being human is all about imperfection. You need to have a certain amount of flaws that you can work on otherwise life is going to be very boring indeed.
As far as my view point is concerned I would be happy with the way my child is. I would not try to change his or her basic construct. And what’s more I would always remember that my baby is a living breathing being who has the right to live his or her own life. I would not treat the kid as my second chance at life. No matter what; life has its own plan for you and your baby. Don’t let science interfere. Happiness is not about perfection; rather it is about accepting your flaws.

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Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 at 9:43 am | by techyug |