NEW YORK, March 3 (UPI) -- A U.S. fertility doctor says that he will soon be able to allow parents to choose their babies' eye and hair color.
Dr. Jeff Steinberg, whose Fertility Institute has clinics in New York and Los Angeles, says research that has already made it possible to select a baby's gender has also yielded the technology to enable parents to make eye and hair color choices, the New York Daily News reported Tuesday.
"In the process of doing gender selection … we've also uncovered the technology (to) characterize things like eye and hair color," Steinberg, 54, told the newspaper.
The "custom-made baby" claims were slammed by bioethicists and anti-abortion rights groups, who say the practice encourages the destruction of unwanted embryos.
It is "sickening to flush a member of the human family down the drain" because they aren't considered perfect, Lori Kehoe, executive director of the New York State Right to Life Committee, told the Daily News.
But Steinberg contends reproductive technologies aren't about to go away, saying, "Genetic health is the wave of the future. It's already happening and it's not going to go away. It's going to expand."
