Congratulations, ItWill Be A Boy!

Until just a fewyears ago,making a baby boy or a girl was pretty much a hit-or-miss affair. Notanymore .Parents who have access to the latest genetic testing techniques can

now predeter-minetheir baby's sex with great accuracy,as Monique and Scott Collins learned totheir delight two years ago,when their long-wished-for daughter Jessica was

born after geneticprescreening（基因筛选）.

And baby Jessica isjust the beginning. Within a decade or two,it may be possible to screen kidsalmost before conception（怀孕）for an enormous range of attributes（特

性）,such as howtall they are likely to be,what body type they will have,their hair and eyecolor,what sort of ill-ness they will be naturally resistant to, andeven,conceivably

（可想见地）,theirIQ and person-ality type.

In fact,if genetherapy lives up to its promise,parents may someday be able to go beyondweeding out（筛去）undesirabletraits and start actually inserting the genes they

want-perhaps e-ven genesthat have been crafted（创造）ina lab. Before the new millennium is many years old, parents may be going tofertility clinics（生殖诊所）and

picking from a listof options the way car buyers order air conditioning and chrome alloy（铬合金）wheels."It is the ultimateshopping ex- periencE.designing your

baby,"saysbiotechnology critic Jeremy Rilkin,who is appalled by the prospect."But ina society used to cosmetic surgery（整容手术）,this is not a big step."

The prospect ofdesigner（定制）babies,likemany of the ethnical conundrums（难题）posed by the geneticrevolution,is confronting the world so rapidly that

doctors,ethicists（伦理学家）, religious leaders andpoliticians are just starting to grapple with（与……进行格斗）theimplica- tions-and trying to decide how they feel

about it all.

They still have abit of time .Aside from gender,the only traits they can now be identified atthe earliest stages of development are about a dozen of the most seriousgenetic

diseases.Genetherapy in embryos（胚胎）isat least a few years away. And the gene or combination of genes responsible formost of our physical and mental attributes has

not even beenidentified yet. Besides, say clinicians,even if the techniques for makingdesigner babies are perfected within the next decade,they should be applied inthe

service of diseaseprevention,not improving on nature.What is genetherapy supposed to do if it lives up to its promise?

A.Screen a baby forsex.

B. Predetermine ababy's sex.

C. Insert genes.

D. Identify geneticdisorders.