“You have specified brown hair and blue eyes, and fair skin.” (Gattaca Movie- Columbia Pictures)

Hello, I’m Charlotte Bellis, and you’re watching Newsy.com.

In 1997, the movie Gattica imagined a world where parents could custom-design their babies.

Today, the idea is almost a reality with Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis—or PGD.

PGD technology allows doctors to screen embryos for a variety of genetic traits.

Now a Los Angeles clinic is offering the technology to allow parents to select the sex, hair and eye color of their babies.

Here’s what the Fertility Institutes advertise on their website:

“Girl or boy… the Fertility Institutes, the world’s largest 100% self-selection program, is now helping to make that dream come, with near perfect certainty, for thousands of parents.” (Fertility Institutes)

The ability to choose a baby’s sex, hair and eye color is igniting a firestorm of fierce debate:

The New York Daily News says, “Custom-made babies delivered.”
FOX News asks, “Want a blue-eyed, blond-haired baby girl?”
The Wall Street Journal’s headline reads, “A Baby, Please. Blond, Freckles -- Hold the Colic.”

PGD for sex selection is illegal in 35 countries… including the UK, Italy and Canada.

Canada’s Gateway online warns against what it sees as a future problem with the technology:

“Selecting a baby’s eye or hair colour doesn’t appear to be all that extreme, but it sets a precedent… Who gets to assume the ethical and moral authority to draw the line for what can and can’t be selected?” (Gateway)

Jeff Steinberg-who runs the Fertility Institutes- is defending the technology, saying it’s mainly used to combat genetic diseases like cancer.

FOX News’ Bill O’Reily talked to Steinberg. Steinberg defends the technology and criticizes the countries that ban it:

“You’ll see babies with easily preventable genetic disorders—in the same countries that basically have banned the technology. One thing here in the United States that we have always cherished is reproductive rights, reproductive freedoms.” (FOX News)

The BBC acknowledges the medical merits of PGD, but raises this possibility:

“A couple might want to have a baby with a darker complexion to help guard against a skin cancer if they already had a child who had developed a melanoma. But others might just want a boy with blonde hair.” (BBC)

Does the science even exist?

The Today Show brings us the perspective of one doctor who says- not so fast:

“The science is kinda there. You could pick the possibility of having a higher chance of a blue-eyed, or blond-haired baby. But things like intelligence and sports athletic ability. Those genes we don’t know, we don’t know how to select for them. They’re multi-factorial, and I don’t think we’ll be able to select for them. I think this is more hype than reality.” (NBC's Today Show)

Some argue for greater regulation of fertility and reproductive technology, especially after the controversial birth of the California octuplets.

Should parents get to choose genetic traits for their baby? Where should the line be drawn?