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Importance of environmental ethical theories in ecosystem conservation
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Could you imagine your parents designing you? Picture your parents being able to go into a room and design you just like that. They could choose what you would look like, be like, and even what abilities you may have. It sounds crazy, but science is advancing and soon this will be possible, that is, if we allow it.
A designer baby is a child who is genetically modified for the purpose of removing any defects that are genetically linked, and/or to select certain genes that appeal to the parents. This process of creating designer babies is called genetic engineering. Genetic engineering is the alteration of DNA by adding and/or removing certain genes. Since the discovery of human genetic modification, scientists have proposed the idea of
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“It 's not easy as “I want to buy and egg,” states, the director of the Donor Egg Bank, Brigid Dowd. “Not everyone realizes what 's involved, and then when they hear the cost, many just pass out.” (CGS: Designing the $100,000 Baby,” par. 13) It is a fact that having certain traits are valuable, so this shows that the mere modification used on the designer baby, the more the cost. “If you are too rigid or become too obsessed with finding the perfect image you have in mind, the choice can become more difficult,” says Dowd. (“CGS: Designing the $100,000 Baby,”par. 16) The practice of human genetic modification will not be fair because only the wealthy will have enough money to spend on designing a baby. Therefore, the wealthy will have much more advantages such as longer, healthier, and successful lives. If only people of high class are able to afford designer babies, it will cause an even greater inequality between the rich and the poor (“The Ethics of Designer Babies”). It will also create a society based on “Social Darwinism”- The survival of the fittest. If creating designer babies will cause more inequalities and Social Darwinism, why should we allow this practice? (“The ethics of Designer Babies”)
Furthermore, another reason why creating designer babies is not ideal is that it will weaken diversity and uniqueness in our world. With human genetic engineering, humanity
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It will make diversity and uniqueness weak, everyone will be "perfect" and no one will focus on the uniqueness of human beings. The great things we may achieve will be of less value since more people will be similar and have those same abilities. Children will be less appreciated because they will be more of a product (robot) than a unique gift. Through this practice we will face the dangers of races being eliminated and our world becoming a male dominated place. Genetic modification takes away our right to create and live our own story. If we are all genetically modified our lives will all be similar and less exciting. If creating designer babies will weaken diversity and uniqueness, why should we allow it? The world will be dull and full of clones, is it worth
Once altered, the baby will have no say in how its cells are used, or traits they wish to keep but no longer will have the chance too. Some designer babies are created to help others through transplants. Even though the intention may be decent, it is still taking away the child's chance to have a choice in his body. Certain transplants are painful, such as a bone marrow transplant, and creating the child to be used as a donor could possibly put him through involuntary pain.
Designer babies are just like any other child and will grow up just as any other child will. The only difference between designer and normal babies are that designer babies are genetically modified. The genetic modifications would ideally include immunity to illnesses, choice of sex, physical characteristics, and mental and physical capabilities. The genetic modifications could be as little or as extensive as the parent would like but the doctors in charge would be able to recommend certain modifications in order to combat certain common family diseases. All of this would ultimately lead into more popular genes being passed down to the children and less and less modifications will be needed. This is able to be done because DNA or genes are the basis of all characteristics in organisms. As of yet, humans lack the technology and ...
However, with genetic engineering this miracle of like is taken and reduced to petty “character creation” picking and choosing what someone else thinks should “make them special”. An unborn child that undergoes genetic treatments in this fashion is known as a designer baby (“Should Parents Be Permitted to Select the Gender of Their Children?”). By picking and choosing the traits of a child these designer babies bear similarities to abortion, choosing to get rid of the original child in favor of a “better” one. It is also unfair to deprive a child of their own life. By removing the element of chance and imputing their own preferences, children become treated more as an extension of their parents than as living beings with their own unique life. Parents could redirect a child’s entire life by imposing their wishes before they are even born, choosing a cookie cutter tall, athletic boy over a girl with her own individual traits, or any other choice that would redirect a child’s
A problem that could arise is a repeat of history. Inequality. Our society would be divided into two groups, the “valids” or “perfect humans” and the “in-valids” or “non perfect humans.” This is just another form of discrimination, whereby people are judged because of the circumstances of they were born, something that they have no control over. "I belong to a new underclass, no longer determined by social status or the colour of your skin. We now have discrimination down to a science." -Vincent. In the film “in-valids were granted less rights than the “valids.” Sounds familiar? In the 1960’s many protests occurred because of the inequality and brutality against African-Americans, who had their rights taken away from them based on the colour of their skin. Introducing the practice of genetically modifying humans to live up to the ideology of perfection could cause protests, violence, chaos and possibly a repeat of the Civil Rights Movement. For many years our society has been attempting to eliminate inequality, but this practice could just as easily re-create
However , a gap in society could corrupt. Creating classes that distinguish designer babies from those that are not. Creating a kid versus a natural born kid could
After the discovery of genetically altering an embryo before implantation, “designer babies” was coined to describe a child genetically altered “to ensure specific intellectual and cosmetic characteristics.” (“Designer Babies” n.p.). This procedure combines genetic engineering and In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) to make sure certain characteristics are absent or present in an embryo (Thadani n.p.). The procedure also includes taking an embryo to be pre-implementation genetically diagnosed (PGD), another procedure that doctors use to screen the embryos (Stock n.p.). An embryo’s DNA goes through multiple tests to obtain an analysis of the embryo, which will list all the components of the embryo including genetic disorders and physical traits such as Down syndrome, blue eyes, and brown hair, for instance (Smith 7). Although the use of PGD is widely accepted by the “reproductive medical community” and the modifying of disorders or diseases is to a degree, once the characteristics are no longer health related “72% disapprove of the procedure” (“Designer Babies” n.p.). At this point the parents make decisions that would alter their child’s life forever and this decision is rather controversial in the U...
SUMMARY: Director of the Ethics Institute, Ronald M. Green, in his article “Building Baby from the Genes Up” discusses why he thinks that genetically modifying babies genes is more beneficial than destructive. He begins his article off by mentioning a story of a couple who wishe to genetically modify their baby so that they could make sure the baby would not develop the long family line of breast cancer. Green then notifies the reader that no matter where they stand on the matter, genetically modifying babies is going to become more and more popular. Even the National Institute of Health is beginning to invest in technology that can be used to genetically modify human genes. He then explains how genetically modifying human genes can be beneficial,
From designer purses to designer shoes, each one is created single handedly by one person, or the designer. Shaping and molding an item to their specific standards. Through advances in genetic modification, scientists have now been able to change, or design an embryotic cell to remove some hereditary genes. Through Richard Hayes’s, Genetically Modified Humans? No Thanks, and Ronald Green’s, Building Baby from the Genes Up, both touch on the negatives and positives of genetically modifying human traits in embryotic cells.
What do one think of when they hear the words “Designer Babies”? A couple designing their own baby of course, and it’s become just that. Technology has made it possible for there to be a way for doctors to modify a babies characteristics and its health. Genetically altering human embryos is morally wrong, and can cause a disservice to the parents and the child its effecting.
Picture a young couple in a waiting room looking through a catalogue together. This catalogue is a little different from what you might expect. In this catalogue, specific traits for babies are being sold to couples to help them create the "perfect baby." This may seem like a bizarre scenario, but it may not be too far off in the future. Designing babies using genetic enhancement is an issue that is gaining more and more attention in the news. This controversial issue, once thought to be only possible in the realm of science-fiction, is causing people to discuss the moral issues surrounding genetic enhancement and germ line engineering. Though genetic research can prove beneficial to learning how to prevent hereditary diseases, the genetic enhancement of human embryos is unethical when used to create "designer babies" with enhanced appearance, athletic ability, and intelligence.
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.
Usage of genetic modification to pick and chose features and personality traits of embryos could conceivably occur in future times. Wealthy individuals could essentially purchase a baby with built-in genetic advantages (Simmons). Ethically, these seem immoral. Playing God and taking control over the natural way of life makes some understandably uneasy. Ultimately, religious and moral standpoints should play a role in the future of genetic engineering, but not control it. Genetic engineering’s advantages far outweigh the cost of a genetically formulated baby and
...e to increase a human being’s live to 30 years—which I agree is good but only if necessary—. People think Designer babies is the future of our children because it could allows parents to choose what their children look like and what qualities they possess.
If a limit is not set between using genetic engineering for treatment and using genetic engineering for enhancement, then many parents could use it purely for eugenic purposes. This could cause ethical concerns but social concerns as well. If this was allowed to occur, it would also give the rich even more advantages than they already have to begin with and drive the social classes even farther apart. The use of genetic engineering may also lead to genetic discrimination. As in the movie Gattaca, a person could easily get a print-out of his or her genotype, this information could then be used by schools, employers, companies, and others; giving rise to a new form of discrimination based on a person’s genetic profile. As the world is already full of discrimination, genetic engineering would even increase the numbers of discrimination against people.
Many debilitating and severe unwanted diseases, genetic disorders and disabilities can be avoided through the creation of designer babies. A child's quality of life would be drastically increased if they evade Down Syndrome, deformities or heart disease for example. In a sense, it isn’t all that different to hearing aid, medication for an illness or chemotherapy for cancer, but on a larger scale and earlier in someone’s life, before it even really begins in fact. Some people would argue that changing genes is changing who people are, which they view as ‘wrong’, but genes aren’t exactly the only things that make up a person anyway. The way that they grow up and their surroundings also make people...