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.
What does the author mean when he says, "They still have a bit of time. "

选项 A、Designer babies will soon be a reality.
B、Nature will be altered by designer babies.
C、There is no need at the moment to be too worried about designer babies.
D、Scientists are working against time to design baby.

答案C

解析 最后一段说,当今基因技术尚不完善,可以为自己的孩子挑选优良品质也是几十年后的事,而且医界人士也表态说“将来这些技术也应该用来服务于疾病预防,而不用来改变自然”,所以有关人士还有时间来考虑究竟应该对基因技术作出什么样的评价。这些都在劝慰人们不要对该技术的发展太过担心。
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