Every person wants the ability to see into the future more than ever with the technological and medical advances that America has created in the last century. Thanks to the world of genetic testing, families and individuals are now able to see what their health may be like in the coming years. Genetic testing can be done on every person, but required a lot of time and energy to go through with it. For some families the time is well spent when it comes to doing prenatal genetic testing on their new family member. But what about having prenatal genetic tests done on an unborn child who never asked to see what could potentially happen in their lives? What about the parents who want that “perfect child” and knows genetic testing and in vitro fertilization is the only way to have them? Or what about the couple who doesn’t want their child to have a deadly disease that runs in their family and think about terminating the pregnancy according to the results? These questions were never asked in decades before us, but will it cause unknown problems? Genetic testing is creating a discriminatory situation for unborn children who are either being aborted or chosen due to the genes their parents prefer. Consequently, society and families are creating a whole new threat to humanity itself.
More and more families are choosing to terminate pregnancies to achieve their perfect child. “Prenatal testing is about reassurance: Couples expect to learn their babies will be fine” (Painter). But in most cases, children are often found to have some genetic mutation. As the child is formed in the womb, many parents, often times, dream of what their unborn child will become later in life. These dreams can create the perfect image every parent wants for their ...
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...rivacy and Confidentiality”. Hastings Center Report. Sept./Oct. 1995: 32-39. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
Darnvsky, Marcy, and Alexandra Minna Stern. “The Bleak New World of Prenatal Genetics.” Wall Street Journal. 13 Jun. 2013: p. A. 17. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.
Harmon, Amy. “Genetic Testing + Abortion = ???.” New York Times (New York, NY). 13 May. 2007:1+. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
Painter, Kim. “Prenatal Genetic Testing: how Much Do You Want to Know?” US TODAY. Aug. 15-17 1997: 1-2. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.
Painter, Kim. “Prenatal Genetic Testing: 3 Families, 3 Decisions.” USA TODAY. Aug. 18 1997: 6D-7D. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
Szabo, Liz. “Earlier Prenatal Tests Usher In ‘Heartbreaking’ Decisions.” USA TODAY. 02 May. 2013: p. A. 1. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 11 Mar. 2014
Teutch, S., & Tuckson, R. Department of Health & Human Services, (2008). U.S. system of oversight of genetic testing: A response to the charge of the secretary of health and human services. Retrieved from website: http://osp.od.nih.gov/sites/default/files/SACGHS_oversight_report.pdf
Kitcher introduces Utopian eugenics, as a solution that improves the quality of an embryonic life. He envisions a world where education is used to enlighten peoples understanding of molecular genetics and allows t...
Rochman, Bonnie. "Genetic Testing for Kids: Is It a Good Idea?" Time. Time, 18 Apr. 2011. Web. 01 Feb. 2014. .
Imagine a parent walking into what looks like a conference room. A sheet of paper waits on a table with numerous questions many people wish they had control over. Options such as hair color, skin color, personality traits and other physical appearances are mapped out across the page. When the questions are filled out, a baby appears as he or she was described moments before. The baby is the picture of health, and looks perfect in every way. This scenario seems only to exist in a dream, however, the option to design a child has already become a reality in the near future. Parents may approach a similar scenario every day in the future as if choosing a child’s characteristics were a normal way of life. The use of genetic engineering should not give parents the choice to design their child because of the act of humans belittling and “playing” God, the ethics involved in interfering with human lives, and the dangers of manipulating human genes.
Kolata, Gina. "Ethics Questions Arise as Genetic Testing of Embryos Increases." The New York Times. The New York Times, 03 Feb. 2014. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
Ricci, Mariella Lombardi. "Assisted Procreation And Its Relationship To Genetics And Eugenics." Human Reproduction & Genetic Ethics 15.1 (2009): 9-29. Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.
The Human Genome Project is the largest scientific endeavor undertaken since the Manhattan Project, and, as with the Manhattan Project, the completion of the Human Genome Project has brought to surface many moral and ethical issues concerning the use of the knowledge gained from the project. Although genetic tests for certain diseases have been available for 15 years (Ridley, 1999), the completion of the Human Genome Project will certainly lead to an exponential increase in the number of genetic tests available. Therefore, before genetic testing becomes a routine part of a visit to a doctor's office, the two main questions at the heart of the controversy surrounding genetic testing must be addressed: When should genetic testing be used? And who should have access to the results of genetic tests? As I intend to show, genetic tests should only be used for treatable diseases, and individuals should have the freedom to decide who has access to their test results.
The addition of a child into a family’s home is a happy occasion. Unfortunately, some families are unable to have a child due to unforeseen problems, and they must pursue other means than natural pregnancy. Some couples adopt and other couples follow a different path; they utilize in vitro fertilization or surrogate motherhood. The process is complicated, unreliable, but ultimately can give the parents the gift of a child they otherwise could not have had. At the same time, as the process becomes more and more advanced and scientists are able to predict the outcome of the technique, the choice of what child is born is placed in the hands of the parents. Instead of waiting to see if the child had the mother’s eyes, the father’s hair or Grandma’s heart problem, the parents and doctors can select the best eggs and the best sperm to create the perfect child. Many see the rise of in vitro fertilization as the second coming of the Eugenics movement of the 19th and early 20th century. A process that is able to bring joy to so many parents is also seen as deciding who is able to reproduce and what child is worthy of birthing.
Caplan, A., & Arp, R. (2014). The deliberately induced abortion of a human pregnancy is not justifiable. Contemporary debates in bioethics (pp. 122). Oxford, West Sussex: Wiley.
Prenatal genetic testing has become one of the largest and most influencial advances in clinical genetics today. "Of the over 4000 genetic traits which have been distinguished to date, more than 300 are identifiable via prenatal genetic testing" (Morris, 1993). Every year, thousands of couples are subjecting their lives to the results of prenatal tests. For some, the information may be a sigh of relief, for others a tear of terror. The psychological effects following a prenatal test can be devastating, leaving the woman with a decision which will affect the rest of her life.
The "Genetic Screening" Genetic Screening. NDSU,. Web. The Web. The Web.
Genetic testing, also known as screening, is a rapidly advancing new scientific field that can potentially revolutionize not only the world of medicine, but many aspects of our lives. Genetic screening is the sequencing of human DNA in order to discover genetic differences, anomalies, or mutations that may prove pathological. As genetic screening becomes more advanced and easily accessible, it presents society with difficult questions that must be asked about the boundaries of science and to what degree we are allowed to tamper with the human genome. To better understand the potential impact of genetic screening on our society, we must examine the potential benefits in comparison to the possible negative impact it may cause. With this knowledge in hand, we can examine what the future holds for this field of study and the best possible direction to take.
Dordon, John Stewart. "Abortion" Plos ONE 7.12 (2012): 1-8. Web. Ruhr-University Bochum 2 Feb. 2014.
First of all, I want to start by saying that I 'm not discriminating the disabled community, but this is a very large number that could possibly be diminished with the help of genetic testing. (1) I believe that there is nothing wrong with testing the genes of an unborn child to possibly determine if it could develop a genetic disorder in the future. One of the advantages that genetic testing provides is that the parents could now be informed of the situation, and keep track of their unborn child 's health. I 'm sure those parents are pleased with this technology, and the chances to be able to keep track of their baby. This a baby, and is something very precious, and valuable, and I believe that parents want to keep track of anything that may happen with the unborn child. I 'm sure that a large amount of people would agree would agree that they don 't want to suddenly take the hard hit. When the news is presented in the delivery room. This serves more as an advantage than a disadvantage, due to the fact parents. Pull be more prepared, or possibly have the option to abort it. This is a right that the parents should have regardless of the opposing side arguments towards it. Im a hundred percent sure that the opposing side has very strong arguments towards genetics testing, and one of the main ones is "playing God." The opposing side believed that some things in