Congratulations, It Will Be A Boy! Until just a few years ago, making a baby boy or a girl was pretty much a hit-or-miss aff

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问题                     Congratulations, It Will Be A Boy!
    Until just a few years ago, making a baby boy or a girl was pretty much a hit-or-miss affair. Not anymore. Parents who have access to the latest genetic testing techniques can now predetermine their baby’s sex with great accuracy, as Monique and Scott Collins learned to their delight two years ago, when their long-wished-for daughter Jessica was born after genetic prescreening(基因筛选).
    And baby Jessica is just the beginning. Within a decade or two, it may be possible to screen kids almost before conception(怀孕)for an enormous range of attributes(特性), such as how tall they are likely to be, what body type they will have, their hair and eye color, what sort of illness they will be naturally resistant to, and even, conceivably(可想见地), their IQ and personality type.
    In fact, if gene therapy lives up to its promise, parents may someday be able to go beyond weeding out(筛去)undesirable traits and start actually inserting the genes they want—perhaps e-ven genes that have been crafted(创造)in a lab. Before the new millennium is many years old, parents may be going to fertility clinics(生殖诊所)and picking from a list of options the way car buyers order air conditioning and chrome alloy(铬合金)wheels. "It is the ultimate shopping experience: designing your baby," says biotechnology critic Jeremy Rifkin, who is appalled by the prospect. "But in a society used to cosmetic surgery(整容手术), this is not a big step. "
    The prospect of designer(定制)babies, like many of the ethnical conundrums(难题)posed by the genetic revolution, is confronting the world so rapidly that doctors, ethicists(伦理学家), religious leaders and politicians are just starting to grapple with(与......进行格斗)the implications—and trying to decide how they feel about it all.
    They still have a bit of time. Aside from gender, the only traits they can now be identified at the earliest stages of development are about a dozen of the most serious genetic diseases. Gene therapy in embryos(胚胎)is at least a few years away. And the gene or combination of genes responsible for most of our physical and mental attributes has not even been identified yet. Besides, say clinicians, even if the techniques for making designer babies are perfected within the next decade, they should be applied in the service of disease prevention, not improving on nature.
Which of the following statement is true?

选项 A、Designing babies may cause ethical concerns.
B、Designing babies is purely scientific and will not cause ethical problems.
C、The prospect of designing babies has already led to strong criticism from various communities.
D、People are concerned about the possible harm done to science by designing babies.

答案A

解析 根据第四段内容“就像基因革命所带来的许多道德上的困惑一样,通过基因疗法来设计婴儿的这一前景,使得各方人士,如医生、伦理学家、宗教领袖和政治家,开始试图理解这一技术的含义,并试图决定他们对待这一技术的态度”,可以判断A正确。然后再一一分析后三个选项。选项B“设计婴儿是纯粹科学方面的事,不会引起道德争论。”文中没提及“设计婴儿是纯粹科学方面的事”,而认为“不会引起道德争论”则明显不符合原文。选项C“设计婴儿的前景已经引起了各方强烈谴责”,而原文只说各方人士开始关注这一技术,并未引来谴责。选项D“人们关心设计婴儿可能会伤害到科学”,这在文中没有提及,所以也不选。
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