Credit: Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive)
A storm of protest broke out a month or so ago when a fertility clinic in Los Angeles announced it would start helping women choose what their babies might look like. The ruckus was loud enough that the clinic has since backed off on this service.
And this is probably a good thing. I am not sure this is a road we want to go down-- it smacks a bit too much of Hitler and a perfect race.
Of course, we've started down this road a ways already. We aren't able to shape anyone's DNA yet. We don't have the technology to do this in any safe or reliable way and frankly, it'll probably be a long time before we can.
But we can take a peek at an embryo's DNA if the egg has been fertilized outside of the body. The process is called preimplantation genetic diagnosis or PGD. Using PGD, scientists can look through a number of embryos' DNA and pick the one(s) the parents want.
Right now we can't scan all of an embryo's DNA. We have to pick and choose what part of the DNA to look at.