AI BABIES A TRANSGRESSION OF RIGHTS
Author: Taiba Walia Makrani (Navrachana University, Vadodara, Gujarat)
With passage of time, technology and human welfare has come a long way. With technology, man has overcome many impossible things and have got an ease in his slog. From Ayurvedato numerous painless cures, it has acted as a support to human beings and served the mankindin different ways, and is still serving in many surprising ways but this friend along with benefitsbrings many unsolicited concerns.
“Japanese scientist Professor Katsuhiko Hayashi a stem cell biology expert and his team is allset to get babies through artificial womb by 2028”.
Whereas, “Mr. Hashim Al-Ghaili says he and his team will be able to have 30,000 babies in a year, and they are also planning to have an “Elite package”, where parents will be able to genetically engineer the embryo before implanting it into the artificial womb and will also be able to choose its traits like eyes, hair colour, intelligence level, strength etc. through a menu”2.
Indeed, such technology will help women with cancer have babies after getting the uterus removed, and will also get a relief from C-sections and pre-mature birth. It will act as a hope for infertile women but simultaneously it will act as a blunder from a broader perspective. It will put human significance on the verge of diminishing and will affect the rights of the engineered babies, as no matter what technology is used to give birth to that infant, at the end it’s a human being.
Technology in every aspect should act as a supportive mechanism and in no manner should beallowed to monitor human lives, and that too to such an extent that they become a copy ofperfection just like a robot or becomes mere puppets losing the natural significance ofimperfection. And though this technology of getting babies through AI in every aspects ofmorality and to the phenomena of birth has more negative and adverse effects, this idea ofserving mankind will only result in the manufacturing the copies of human robots who, later, will be forced to create a delusion of perfect world.
Choosing traits of the babies before birth is like getting a human life customised; they will beforced to live those traits in a particular, predetermined manner all their lives. Getting traitsnaturally is truly an act of God and fate, but having customized traits as a person is not lessthan being a puppet. On a broader interpretation of Art. 21 this surely infringes the rights of anunborn, as humans cannot be forced to live in accordance to their whims and fancies throughouttheir lives.
Such babies with customized traits will create a sort of discrimination among children born innatural wombs and will make a huge difference in the long run. This will cause a wave ofinequality in the upcoming generation as customised children, through their chosen trait ofintelligence and strength, will be able to perform more efficiently than those born naturally.
Children will face discrimination at each level, whether physically, emotionally, orpsychologically. With equality, equity too will lose its essence. Unequal competition and fakeperfection will be the only thing left behind. Along with AI babies, an artificial world will becreated. Children in such an environment will be forced to live a pseudo-life and will neverhave access to a dignified life.
Not only this, but the adoption rate will also fall. People will choose to have AI babies rather than adopt kids. At present, when we lack such technology, have such a low rate of adoptionthat, after getting such technology getting homes for the orphan will just become a thing ofpast.
For instance, if I only talk about India, then it is a nation with second-largest population in theworld. “Where, as per the NHRC in between 5 April 2020 to June 5, 2021, there have been1,50,000 children, who have become orphan”, “whereas in the year April 2020 to March 2021only 3142 children got adopted”.
However, this data may lack the survey of n no of street children who by fate are forced to havean orphan life. This figure belongs to just one single year in our country, whereas across theworld, as per the report of U.N.I.C.E.F. there are 1,53 million children who are orphans.
Getting such advance technology, will vandalise the idea of a natural life; this technology willcreate chaos amongst children and, to a great extent, create a kind of inferiority and superioritybetween children. And after years, we will be in need to give reservations to the naturally bornin order to establish equity. As customised will function more productively due to the chosencharacteristics, and the natural ones will either suffer depression, or because of the competitivenature will be forced to commit suicide, and then reservations or ban on such technology willbe the only options left with us.