Genetic Engineering and the Pursuit of Perfection

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In the year 2050, a young boy nervously rehearses what he’s going to say as he approaches the cheerleader he’s been too nervous to approach for the past month. But as he draws near, a jock pushes his books out of his hands. He’s teased, being the school wimp. They call him names like “undesirable”, “god-child”, and “in-valid”. Of course nobody cares for a less-than-perfect child whose genetic makeup was left to fate.

With the introduction of genetic engineering into society, people like this young boy simply have no hope for competing against the likes of the genetically reimagined, “perfect” jock, people engineered to be unflawed. With this technology, comes a whole new social setting and new rules must be set down as the human race wanders into unfamiliar territory. The progression of technology is leading the human race into an age of awe-inspiring brightness, which blinds us from realizing the long-term, species-changing effects it has on us, forging a more lazy, more shallow, and above all, less “human” society. Among the effects of the creation of a perfect human are an elite race which gives way to a whole new level of discrimination and caste system. There are countless social implications such as a new type of “jock and cheerleader” in high school and discrimination within the job-economy with the “perfect” humans, and their elite race being far more favorable. Most disturbing, is that these visions into the future are not so far ahead for the human race; according to The New York Times, as in their article “Genetically Modified Babies”, published February 23rd, 2014, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is already moving to approve “radical biological procedures that, if successful, woul...

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...merican Journal, 5 Nov. 2012. Web.

Newman, Stuart A. "FDA Asked to Approve Creation of Genetically Modified

Children." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 20 Feb. 2014. Web. 02 Mar. 2014.

Platt, John. "Monsanto Wins Supreme Court Case on GMO Soybean Seeds." Mother

Nature Network. Mnn.com, 13 May 2013. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.

Rutherford, Adam. "Synthetic Biology: 'playing God' Is Vital If We Are to Create

a Better Future for All." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 28 July 2012. Web. 03 Mar. 2014.

Rockwell, Diana P. "Genetic Engineering." Teen Ink. Teen Ink, 2011. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.

Sherwood, Rena. "Living with Early Menopause." Living Healthy 360. N.p., 26 Apr. 2008. Web.

Smith, Lydia. "Three Parent Baby: Genetic Innovation Could Eliminate Hereditary

Disease in Children." International Business Times RSS. N.p., 27 Feb. 2014. Web. 03 Mar. 2014.

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