The Pros And Cons Of Designer Babies

The science behind making designer babies has not been perfected yet. According to Debolina Raja “The technology that helps to create designer babies is not one hundred percent safe. At the moment, it is still in its experimental stage and there is much to be developed and tested. There are so many unknowns in making your baby perfect that it is not worth taking the risk.” This is a huge con to consider when trying to decide if baby building is right for you. These pros and cons are not necessarily valid in some people 's beliefs, but on a general basis, these opinions make up the two sides of the

Genetic selection is new, unsupervised, and dangerous for the potential children who were their parent’s top choice in a laboratory. The physical effects on selected children are unknown, and can’t be researched without major ethical dilemmas such as human testing and the disposal of fertilized eggs. In my final analysis, I am strictly against the use of genetic selection for “perfect” embryos. When children are carried, parents are expected to have a multitude of questions. Boy or girl?

In a similar world, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley individuals are not born from parents but from jars. These jars are tampered with to have control over the development of the embryo. In this world, close relationships to anyone is looked down on. In both Gattaca and Brave New World, both societies wanted to achieve a perfect world but Gattaca’s definition of perfection is to achieve a world of genetically superior brings whereas in Brave New World it is to have a stable civilization. What stands out in comparison of Gattaca and Brave New World is that to achieve stability in Brave New world is to have no close relations to anyone.

Basically, the difference between the two is that in reproductive the cloned embryo is implanted in the womb and is going to develop into an organism and in the therapeutic, the embryo will never develop beyond a chunk of cells. In this matter, although some people think that therapeutic cloning is wrong, I believe that is beneficial because it will cure for a lot of diseases and it will reduce organ transplants. Although, I have to agree with many scientists when they say that reproductive cloning shouldn’t be done in humans because it would likely result in a lot of problems for the cloned as an individual and for the society in general. According to Australian Stem Cell Lab Centre, “Therapeutic cloning refers to the removal of a nucleus, which contains the genetic material, from virtually any cell of the body (a somatic cell) and its transfer by injection into an unfertilized egg from which the nucleus has also been removed. The newly

McMahan explains that a sperm and ovum are not developed as a human like us, therefore, we are not killing a being only preventing one from existing. The fetus is not the same human organism that we are this is why killing it would not be morally wrong. HESC (harvest embryonic stem cells) research shows that people do not see the embryo as having the same moral rights as we do. In other words, fetuses are not believed to have an equivalent moral status compared to adult humans, but we do not act this way. Furthermore, embryos are used for assisted conception leaving many of them frozen preventing them from existing or being killed off (McMahan, 188).

Don Marquis objected to Paul Bassen’s statement that “an embryo cannot be a victim because it lacks sentience” (Marquis 199), by saying that “they still have a future like ours” (Marquis 199). In defence of Bassen’s statement, there is a potential for that embryo, but there is also potential for every possible combination of sperm and egg. In essence when one person is born, millions of other possible people have been denied existence. Also, Marquis ignores the quality of life for that baby and the future of that woman. Marquis tried to defend his opinion but referring to plants as unimportant and lacking the same capabilities as humans.

The film Gattaca makes one question that of determinism. During the time period this movie takes place in, children are genetically engineered to ensure that they possess the best traits. Even for the children who are naturally conceived, the technology available allows doctors to determine the likelihood this individual with develop a certain disease or condition and when they will likely die. The main character of Vincent Freeman, a non-genetically selected individual, defies the idea of hard determinism and shows that free will is possible for humans. A hard determinist believes that free will for humans simply does not exist.

In the article, The Case for Eugenics in a Nutshell, Marian Van Court claims that “human intelligence is largely hereditary”. This is a very unusual statement because intelligence depends on a large amount of factors, not on genetics. Human intelligence cannot be hereditary. For starters, when a child is being created, the genes of two people are mixed together, but there is assurance that the child will not be exactly like either parent (Ridley 12). This might explain that the intelligence of the parents won’t be passed down to the child when the offspring cannot even be so similar to parent.

Designer Babies Although knowing what and how your child would look and act, it is not morally right to change God 's will due to genetic research engineering. Genetic engineering could cause a lot of problems, examples include; causing a gap in society, losing individuality, and termination of the embryo. The child cannot consent to having its body and life altered. The process To begin the process the doctor needs an embryo. The mother 's egg and the father 's sperm are put into a dish to fertilize.

Ethics of Gattaca In recent discussions of the film Gattaca by Andrew Niccol, a controversial issue has been whether pre-implantation genetic diagnosis which is diagnosing a persons diseases before they are born using their genetics is ethical. On the one hand, some argue that the use of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is unethical. From this perspective, to discard babies who's lives would be greatly effected and much harder than others due to diseases that could be diagnosed before birth is unethical. Humans should not be able to “play God” or in other words decide another human’s fate no matter what. On the other hand, however, others argue that it is unethical not to use technology such as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis because

For example, “Drugs such as colistin, which are so important for treating people, need to be withheld from use in animals — at least until absolutely necessary, he says” gives credibility to the scientist at the end of the sentence. These expressions of thought are ambiguous to the reader, which is disappointing since the scientific explanations of genetic transfer were explained in clearly. Although lacking creative writing style, the article provides effective visual aid for a teen audience to be engaged and inquiring to learn more about the issue. The diagram of a bacterial cell offers readers a comparison of bacterial chromosomes with that of plasmids. The cell does not include any other organelles to confuse or distract the student.

The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks has raised ethical issues in the exploration of the origin of HeLa and also the struggles that her siblings faced. These cells are the basis for the discoveries of important scientific studies. If she had been in charge of the tissues that had been removed from her and had been declined them to be used in studies, none of these studies would have been possible. The novel raises many ethical issues and on how science is handled today. We should be able to control what happens to our tissues, the consequences, and benefits of donating tissues to science, should be something we have in thought in the day of age in healthcare and science.