What Are The Pros And Cons Of Gene Therapy

Imagine being able to decide what your baby’s future is before it even exists. Genetic engineering is becoming a controversy in this world. There a dispute between people as to whether this will be a common procedure that will occur and if it will cause benefits or drawbacks. This issue is important to everyone because it will affect lives to come. Some may argue it is inhumane alter your child to what you please; although others argue it will make lives superior with the medical advances.

There has been much debate over altering D.N.A in the next generation of citizens. Many people are disagreeing over the ethics involved with gene editing. Using fairly new technology, Crispr-Cas 9, scientist can now alter D.N.A to eliminate some life threatening diseases and mutations by cutting out unhealthy strands of D.N.A, and replacing it with new ones. More controversially, scientist now have the power to change external appearance and character traits of babies, also know as “designer babies.” Genetic engineering should only be used in most dire situations, only to cure life threatening diseases. Gene editing should be regulated so people have access to screenings to look for potentially deadly diseases.

It could be argued that morally, stem cells should not be used for regenerative medicine because stem cells need to be embryonic stem cells. These stem cells come from embryos from an in vitro fertilisation clinic whereby the fertilised egg was donated for scientific research purposes at the consent of the donor. (NIH Stem Cell Information Home Page, 2016) This can be morally incorrect as these embryos could have developed into foetuses and could have therefore been born and these may have potentially been people that would have been important to society. It can also be argued that the destruction of foetuses is against many religious beliefs and theses stem cells are morally wrong to

Many great things can be accomplished through genetic engineering, but scientific progress is being halted by the opposition 's use of arguments with questionable logic. Most notably is their fear of designer babies. The problem with designer babies is that complex beneficial traits such as height, strength, intelligence, and attractiveness aren’t determined by one gene, and are also dependent on many other variables that aren’t genetic. Some traits such as the shape of an earlobe, eye color, or an individual’s susceptibility to certain diseases are determined by a single gene, and that specific gene can be identified and isolated by scientists. Professor of translational epidemiology at Emory University, Cecile Janssens states, “Even when all genes and their complex interactions are completely understood, our ability to use gene editing for favorable traits will remain limited because human traits are just not genetic enough.” (Janssens).

Leukemia, autoimmune disorders, and blood diseases are all disease that can harm and hurt people. These disease could be fixed with one simple fix: stem cell therapy. While stem cell therapy can be very beneficial. Much is still not known about research for stem cells. Most stem cells come from two sources; either healthy adults or from embryos.

As technology advances, more things become possible. One of these things is genetically modifying a baby, this is very wrong. Genetic modifying or genetic engineering is altering someone or something’s DNA. Scientists hope to cure diseases with this method but doing this can lead to some harmful effects. This process is very unethical.

Some may discredit this point by stating that Charlie’s surgery would improve future scientific understanding. Nonetheless, the ethics behind this decision remain questionable. On the topic of treatment of human test subjects, the article “Ethics of Fieldwork” states, “Special care must be taken with people who are unable to understand or who are particularly susceptible to coercion.” These precautions were not exercised with Charlie, which many would believe to be

The concern of this is that humankind will lose variety. The removal of diseases and the selection of traits is a social concern of the use of CRISPR. For these reasons the technology is currently illegal in countries such as the United Kingdom. However, in America these social concerns should not eliminate the technology’s use in society. Instead, the technology should be implemented only to cure diseases.

Some religions believe that mutations are a “violation of god’s laws” and that doctors are playing god. Economical implications, which is deciding who gets to control the superhuman genes and how much a person gets. Some military can order soldiers to take certain drugs to enhance their abilities for their work in the army. Soldiers don’t always give consent to take the drugs or gene therapy, and some become addicted and misuse the drugs. There could also be some errors in trying to change DNA.

Any type of disorder, disease, or syndrome should be accepted to undergo gene therapy. Doing so would indeed change or save someone 's life. Changing just one simple gene could cure a disease such as cystic fibrosis. People who have never lost a family member or friend to a disease don 't realize how hard it is. That could easily be changed with gene therapy in the future.