Now, order a baby of specific looks

New Delhi: How would you like your baby to look like?

This would have sounded a strange question just two-three years back. But today, embryo banks in the West are actually allowing would-be parents to select their child's characteristics over the Internet and "order" a "designer baby".

This means, the prospective customer can choose the egg and sperm donors after seeing their pictures and checking the details of their medical history, education and family background.

In the first such cross-country order, a British woman is going to be impregnated with a "designer baby" in the next few months when she will undergo treatment at a US embryo bank, London's Daily Mail reported on Thursday.

The embryo bank is run by the Abraham Centre of Life, based in San Antonio, Texas. Daily Mail quoted its director Jennalee Ryan as saying that the embryos will be created in the next two weeks and then they will be frozen so the British couple can come out whenever they want. "They can then return home to have the baby," she said.

Ryan also told the Mail that her clinic has a waiting list of about 10 British women so far. "Whenever there is this option, British people are going to come here and I will assist them," she said.

According to the report, the centre carried out its first two procedures on a woman from Canada and a single mother from California late last year. Both are now five months' pregnant.

Explaining the process, the report said if a couple is interested in buying an embryo, the centre will email them details of the donors they believe match their requirements. They will also see pictures of the donors as they were as babies and as they are as adults and after they decide on the donors, they can go on and avail the treatment at a time suitable for them.

The full service may cost between $14,000 and $18,000, according to the company's website.

According to Mail, the clinic boasts that all sperm donors are college graduates, many of them to doctorate level, while egg donors are in their 20s and are mostly graduates.

The reports have, however, raised a strong ethical debate in Britain with ethical and religious groups condemning the efforts of the human embryo bank to sell "lives off the shelf" and for its attempt to create a "supermarket for designer babies".

The Health Department of Britain is reviewing the laws on fertility and embryology and said designer babies would remain outlawed. The health officials, however, said that nothing could be done to stop patients from going abroad for such treatment.