Advances in medical science has now made it possible for biogenetic engineers to design babies while still in the womb to achieve more desired looks, height, skills, or talent. This scientific breakthrough has challenged the bio-ethics of many Christian denominations that have taken conservative stances in opposition to the issue. Church elders are charging that practitioners of the science are playing God. Some religious leaders have compared researchers of bio-engineering to the Nazis that attempted to engineer Adolf Hitler's master race. Some church officials are convinced medical science has entered "the era of Frankenstein." There are a number of Christian religions that have a particular stance on the designer babies issue.
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1. Catholics
The Catholics have denounced designer babies. Pope Francis has compared embryonic research to abortion.
According to Reuters, the Vatican has long taken a stance against birth control and, in recent years, has addressed the issue of bio-engineering children.
2. Orthodox Christians
Orthodox Christians teach that intervention that is not curative is contrary to personal dignity. The church doctrine believes life begins at conception. In the parish ministry resolution, the church opposes in vitro fertilization and bio-engineering on the grounds that the unused excess embryos are cryogenically frozen and stored for future use. However, in time, these embryos may be in jeopardy of destruction. Since the Church teaches that each embryo is a 'full person', if any of these embryos are willfully destroyed, that act is tantamount to the destruction of a person.
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3. Protestants
Protestants oppose selection of any kind adopting
strict guidelines against designer babies and bio-engineering in general, according to the website allexperts.com. Following similar edicts of the Orthodox Church, the Protestant faith teaches that life begins at conception.
4. Episcopalians
Episcopalian Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali has stated emphatically "designer babies are a disaster" reflecting the popular opinion of many Episcopalians.
In the church's bio-ethics report found on the website episcopalchurch.org, the church elders addresses bio-engineering asking the question, "Can we, who claim to be people of faith, be tempted to believe that our belief in God as creator, redeemer, and sustainer gets replaced by our control and thus make idols of ourselves and our power? How do we relate God's power to our own?"
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5. Southern Baptists
Southern Baptist theologian Dr. R. Albert Mohler stated the church's position and, in his own words, compared designer babies to the Nazi program of bio-engineering. We must remember that human beings are begotten, not made. "Things" are made in factories. Human life – filled with promise and possessing full human dignity – emerges as a miracle from the womb. A society that rejects this distinction is moving headlong toward a moral debacle.