ipl-logo

The Pros And Cons Of Biomedical Engineering

824 Words4 Pages

What are the most important issues your field is facing today?

In medicine, when is the line between helping save lives cross over into play God? As medicine branches into other disciplines such as engineering, the question of ethics still remains. A main component of biomedical engineering is building and designing new tools to better the lives of patients, such as prosthetic limbs, tissue engineering, and the emerging frontier of genetic engineering; along with traditional medicine, one of the most prominent issue facing biomedical engineering is whether it should be used to just treat diseases but also enhance the lives of patients. As stated before the ethical issue of biomedical engineering can be defined as treatment versus enhancement. …show more content…

In medicine, genetic engineering consist of inserting DNA into an organism to add a characteristic the organism did not possess, or take out a damaged part of DNA to treat a genetic disorder. Although genetic engineering, also known as gene therapy, is used to try and improve the quality of life with applications in food and medicine; the moral dilemma of gene therapy is one of playing God, considering genetic engineering changes the DNA in organisms, which can be argued that changing DNA is a job for God alone; even if it improves the quality of someone’s life by producing “better” food and prevented possible genetic disorders. The more prominent moral dilemma in genetic engineering is on the horizon as genetic engineering will be used for enhancement, such as choosing the genomes that parent’s future children have, thus creating “designer babies”. Genetic engineering is arguably the most unethical branch of biomedical engineering due to the fact that not only does it cross the treatment versus enhancement boundary but also because it is the closest to playing God that anyone has ever been by deliberately changing the makeup of human

Show More
Related

  • The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

    1459 Words  | 6 Pages

    Henrietta Lacks, the “Patient” HeLa cells made history beyond polio vaccines and outer space experiments. In Rebecca Skloot’s bestseller, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” HeLa cells went beyond just the successful research, cures, and treatments - they told the story of the Lacks family, and the unethical behaviors in the medical field of the 1950s. Henrietta Lacks was treated as a research subject, rather than just as a patient. Her physicians unethically withheld information relating to informed consent, and uses of her biospecimen, while sharing her private information. They ignored her rights of voluntary choice, disrespected her confidentiality, and lacked communication with both her, and her family, discriminating against her race.

    Read More

  • Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

    615 Words  | 3 Pages

    Science and ethics have been colliding back and forth for centuries. Science want to discover new technologies to help people and for other selfish reason. People want medical help to save their loved ones. Many times scientists have sacrificed the good of a few for the needs of many. In Rebecca Skloot's modern day investigative biography The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot uses Pathos to develop the themes of immorality and unethical behavior of medical science.

    Read More

  • Bioethics In The Movie Jurassic Park

    885 Words  | 4 Pages

    A student from the Michigan University (2007) defines Bioethics as an activity which is a shared, reflective examination of ethical issues in health care, health science, and health policy. These fields have always had ethical standards, of course, handed down within each profession, and often without question. Hence, the discussion of this standards is called Bioethics. This discussions takes place in the media, in the academy, in classrooms, in labs, offices, and hospital wards. The conversation is often sparked by new developments, like the possibility of cloning.

    Read More

  • Gene Modification Rhetorical Analysis

    656 Words  | 3 Pages

    The issue of modification through gene manipulation becomes increasingly complex when considering how this technology can be used as a means to unethical and harmful uses. In the article, Babies with Genes From 3 people could be Ethical, Panel Says, Rob Stein exposes various concerns about three gene donors in an embryo, including how a scientist, “Could introduce some new disease into the human gene pool or that scientists could try to do this for other reasons-nonmedical reasons, like create designer babies where parents pick the traits of their children.” Stein goes on to explain how the gene replacement procedure would take place, which continues to usher in a plethora of concerns as whether to allow Crispr technology be tested on a embryo.

    Read More

  • Surgical Ethics Personal Statement

    692 Words  | 3 Pages

    The primary motivation that has led me to pursue an advanced degree in bioethics at Columbia University is the direct applicability the field has to my interests in medicine. Today, the physician needs to contend with an increasingly pluralistic and multicultural society that can create pressure to compel him or her to accommodate patients ' diverse values. Each person and each physician who come together in the medical relationship have expectations, hopes, and needs. Only after these are understood and respected can appropriate technical measures be applied. My decision to apply to Columbia University is based on the belief that this program provides the optimal environment for me to investigate ethics as it pertains to medicine to prepare myself for the ethical requirements of a physician.

    Read More

  • The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

    1118 Words  | 5 Pages

    The deliberation of bioethics in human cell and stem cell research has flip-flopped altercations between whether stem cell research corrupts the future or if basic ethical uses in clinical research are being held to its standards. The idea of having genetically altered drugs and cells sits with people the wrong way, and with that they have come to the decision that cell research will cause more problems than it stopping them. However, while a majority of people and scientists believe genetic engineering is an evil corruption of nature’s course, genetic engineering has the greatest potential to do something great for our future, but it is our moralistic responsibility to follow the rules of bioethics. The author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta

    Read More

  • Why Genetic Engineering Is Bad

    724 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Gene Editing

    1104 Words  | 5 Pages

    The researchers then combine the broken gene with a healthy gene. This new healthy gene is now modified and free from the mutation it had before. Although many individuals’ ethics and morals stand in the way of gene editing, this technology affects society in many different

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On Designer Babies

    1247 Words  | 5 Pages

    This procedure’s purpose is to switch out genes for more preferred ones, especially to improve the health of the child. Genetic engineering could permit selection of desired physical and pleasurable traits for non-medical reasons, which has created concern in some people. The process of switching out the genes of a fetus to install genes that are more preferred has brought up debate about whether or not parents should be able to alter their babies genes to make them more appealing to the parents interests. There are many different ways of looking at this procedure and in contrast to other scientific procedures it can be for greater good or for unnecessary enhancement that could potentially create problems in society. Designer babies aren’t morally correct or incorrect, but are in between depending on what it is being used for.

    Read More

  • Essay On Gene Editing

    1370 Words  | 6 Pages

    Editing of the human genome in the past has been only a sight seen in dystopia works such as Brave New World. Now, genetic enhancement is a prevalent today and people are beginning to realize the issues that can arise from creating these designer babies. Gene editing can be helpful to eradicate life changing disabilities. Yet, the term disability does not correctly label these differently abled people, as the idea of what is considered disabled has changed overtime. To fully understand the consequences and implications of genetic selection and enhancement of human embryos, society must mature and declare lines of what is and is not ethically moral.

    Read More

  • Biomedical Engineering Career Research Paper

    894 Words  | 4 Pages

    Biomedical engineers do anything on a range from designing artificial internal organs, to present their research findings to other scientists,

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay: The Ethics Of Designer Babies

    1584 Words  | 7 Pages

    Therefore, if two parents are carriers of a certain gene that will disable their child, they can modify that gene to make a child that will not have that disability. As well as some parents will have designer babies to save another child they already have with a certain disease. In this method, parents will choose their child’s blood type and such in order for them to match that other diseased child and potentially give them their blood, marrow, and even organs. Genetically modifying a child’s chance of disease ensures that a child may live a life without potential disease and disability that they may have been more prone to had their parents’ not used this method. This also ensures a healthy life for a child that had a greater potential of having a medical condition due to their parents being carriers of that particular gene.

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Medical Research Experiment

    922 Words  | 4 Pages

    Medical Research has the potential to advance society and make life better for everyone in it. However, the ends cannot justify the means; the rights of the subjects of research cannot be violated no matter the possible benefit to mankind. Despite this, time and time again, it has been very easy for, at least allegedly well-meaning scientists to violate the rights of their research subjects because they wanted to help society as a whole. Such experiments were not performed in secret by a minority of scientists; they were often done “by respected investigators at leading medical institutions and were published in medical journals (Scandals and Tragedies 3). " It is vital that we understand the circumstances of these experiments and why they happened so

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Genetic Engineering

    779 Words  | 4 Pages

    This essay will look more on the advantages and disadvantages of genetic engineering. Genetic engineering has some advantages. Firstly it allows for faster growth rate .Genetic engineering allows of plants or animals to be modified so their maturity can occur at a quicker pace outside of the normal growth conditions that are favourable without genetic changes as well .Secondly, it may also provide a cure for disease to improve health (apecsecadmin, 2014). Genetic engineering can be used to eradicate a number of incurable and deadly disease which could be done by identifying the genes that cause these disease, and manipulate them to prevent people from contracting these potentially deadly diseases.

    Read More

  • Ethical Issues Of Technology Essay

    957 Words  | 4 Pages

    There are ethical challenges as the technology develops, such as the autonomous machines may supersede humans and threaten human existence, and new DNA-based treatment might be the trigger of privacy problems. First, ethics is the philosophical study that deals with what is morally right and wrong in wide scale not only in the scientific field, but also in public, and ethical problems occur as the new technology emerges. Emerging technology includes new technologies and technologies that are starting to be used. For instance, fuel-cell vehicles, artificial intelligence the digital genome, and robots are the emerging technologies. (Al-Rodhan 2).

    Read More

More about The Pros And Cons Of Biomedical Engineering

Open Document