Over the years, movies, novels, and video games have taken us to worlds in which science-fiction became reality. One of the most common plotlines? Genetic engineering. In "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones," Kaminoans create an army of genetically enhanced clones for the Galactic Republic. The recent "Jurassic Park: World" showed us the Indominous Rex whose genes from a slew of creatures--the T-Rex, velociraptors, cuttlefish, pit viper snakes--made it a monster. In games like "BioShock," the villains gained their other-worldly abilities from genetically engineered plasmids. In Margaret Atwood’s "Oryx and Crake," genetically engineered hybrid creatures such as Snats (snake-rats) and Rakunks (skunk-raccoons) were widespread.

The point is, genetic engineering is not something we’re unfamiliar with in fiction. But what if it’s becoming fact? Recently, the United Kingdom’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority approved gene editing in viable human embryos. Right away, questions arise and the imagination runs wild, picturing a dystopian future where everyone is editing their kids’ genes left and right.

These thoughts are incredibly alarming, which is why the HFEA has, so far, only given the green-light to one research project being conducted by biologist Kathy Niakan at the Francis Crick Institute in London. This means only her lab is allowed to do the tweaking as they use the Crispr/Cas9 gene-editing system to study donated embryos in the first week after fertilization. They are purely looking to research how an embryo develops into a healthy baby rather than recreating some sci-fi experiment.

So while this could sound like the beginning of a bad idea, the UK clearly has a good system to regulate experiments like this, and only approves the ones they believe to be safe and ethical. The problem lies less with them and more with what this means for the global community. Around the world, other countries have also fiddled with genes, but with less conscientious regulators than the UK’s. Chinese scientists have already edited nonviable human embryos to correct a gene that causes blood disorders—a seemingly altruistic experiment—but their research projects are largely left unregulated by the government, giving them more freedom to pursue some less than noble experiments.

Even the United States raises some eyebrows with the loopholes our laws have concerning genetic engineering. We’ve banned federal funding for human embryo editing, but that doesn’t really mean much does it? We’ve also banned the selling of drugs like cocaine, but we all know people are still snorting in alleyways and backrooms. While the US may keep a tight leash on its public funding, there’s nothing regulating what people are doing with their private funding. Any billionaire could use their money for whatever research they want.

Unlike Dr. Niakan who is conducting her research for academic purposes, these billionaires might choose to do so for business ventures. How much money could they make with a business that allowed parents to engineer their babies to fit their own ideas of “perfection?” It’s a scary concept, almost reminiscent of Hitler’s use of gruesome experiments to try to create his “master race” of blonde, blue-eyed Aryans. Even though the gene-editing wouldn’t be hurting the children, the idea of picking and choosing what traits are “best” is still there. Who are we to decide those things? They are not our traits to pick and choose, and is it really right for parents to get to decide those things for their future children?

Not to mention the other morally grey aspects this situation brings to mind. In a world where we have thousands of orphans, it seems downright unfair that they could have even less of a chance of getting adopted if designer babies become a trend. We all probably know someone who’d pick a genetically altered baby rather than one from an adoption agency. They’d say it’s easier, it’s more of a sure bet, it’s the better option. That’s just how some people think.

Then there is the argument between pro-life and pro-choice advocates. The embryos Dr. Niakan is using are donated, which is obviously a pro-choice concept. But the pro-lifers out there might argue that since the embryos are viable, they are living human beings. The fact that they are discarded after the research is concluded can be seen as an atrocity.

Either way, there needs to be some strict international laws set up to regulate the genetic engineering of human embryos so that we can advance human knowledge without conducting any unethical experiments, so that a science-fiction nightmare doesn’t become our new reality.