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Ethical dilemmas in genetic engineering
Ethics of genetic engineering
Genetic engineering ethical problems
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Recommended: Ethical dilemmas in genetic engineering
The World of Designer Children
The biological goal of a human is to create successful offspring passing on the parental genes, allowing the race to survive. Most people do not think of wanting a child in these biological terms but think of it as a want to create a family. Pregnancy is quite an investment costing at a minimum of about $20,000 of doctor’s appointments, vitamins, clothes, and hospital bills (Herlihy 1). Just like any normal large investment of time and money people want to be assured the outcome will be positive. With pregnancy this assurance comes from prenatal testing and consultations from esteemed doctors. In recent years scientific advancements have allowed for parents to “choose” their children. From eye color to gender the possibilities are seemingly endless. With this genetic engineering of children there are people opposed to it and people in agreement with it.
A successful pregnancy ends with a healthy child. As most things in human life there are two sides to every battle, an environmental side and a genetic side. Taking prenatal vitamins and listening to doctors advice is only half the fight. The other half is the set of genes a baby is given. One chromosome not successfully splitting during meiosis can cause Down’s Syndrome and no vitamin can change this fact. Expecting couples are more aware than ever, through the fast paced media in our society, about what can go wrong with pregnancy. Prenatal testing allows doctors to screen for diseases and conditions. However, doctors can now genetically modify children before a fetus is conceived. With newer biological enhancements parents will be able to pick eye color, height, hair color, etc. These options are seemingly harmless because they are just phenotypi...
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...whole. These two sides have the potential to reach a fair medium, however research has to be done before this can happen. The consequences of manipulating human genes are not well known. Human research has to be done in order for us to find out the exact consequences. Both sides can agree the consequences should be taken seriously and need to be addressed. Freedom is a subject always talked about in our country and both sides can add this to their own arguments and this point becomes moot. To move forward both sides need to understand how unknown the consequences are noting the fact they could be both positive and negative. There is no way to prove either side and until further research is done therefore parents should leave it to nature to decide. In a situation as delicate as the future of the human race we should play by the saying, “Better safe than sorry.”
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,
In recent years, great advancement has been made in medicine and technology. Advanced technologies in reproduction have allowed doctors and parents the ability to screen for genetic disorders (Suter, 2007). Through preimplantation genetic diagnosis, prospective parents undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) can now have their embryo tested for genetic defects and reduce the chance of the child being born with a genetic disorder (Suter, 2007). This type of technology can open the door and possibility to enhance desirable traits and characteristics in their child. Parents can possibly choose the sex, hair color and eyes or stature. This possibility of selecting desirable traits opens a new world of possible designer babies (Mahoney,
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.
In the present day there are new forms of technology being developed on a regular basis that make what was once impossible a normal reality. With this being said, many individuals throw caution to the wind and decide to take action on their every want and need. When it comes to the process of procreating and bringing a child into this world, parents can find themselves hoping and wishing for one gender over another. In order to ensure that the gender they want is what they get parents can go through variations of processes in order to select the desired gender of their baby. Many in today’s world have deemed these sorts of practices unethical and immoral and some forms of religion refuse the idea of it. Ideas centered around selecting the gender of ones offspring has been a constantly ascending issue due to the fact that it clashes between the parents wishes and what is right for the world and the natural process. Going through with gender selection processes poses the threat that the offspring will simply be mediums of their parents desires rather than the child they were meant to be. This could jump-start a trend in the direction of both good and bad selection of unborn babies features and characteristics (Robertson 3). Selecting the gender of ones unborn baby for nonmedical reasons is unethical and immoral due to discarding unwanted eggs, discrepancies regarding religion, gender bias selections and instability, and the overall disruption of the natural processes for our future generations development.
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.
People should not have access to genetically altering their children because of people’s views on God and their faith, the ethics involving humans, and the possible dangers in tampering with human genes. Although it is many parent’s dream to have the perfect child, or to create a child just the way they want, parents need to realize the reality in genetic engineering. Sometimes a dream should stay a figment of one’s imagination, so reality can go in without the chance of harming an innocent child’s life.
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.
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
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.
One of these moral dilemmas is that genetic engineering changes the traditional dynamic that occurs between the parent and the offspring. This issue arose over the possibility of having a human embryo with three genetic parents which is now possible due to genetic engineering. The procedure in question “involves transplanting the chromosomes from a single-cell embryo or from an unfertilized egg into a donor egg or embryo from which the chromosomes have been removed”(Foht). The procedure itself is very useful for women with mitochondrial disorders but the issue involved with this is that the embryo would technically have three biological parents. There needs to be a real concern about “the way genetic engineering can alter the relationship between the generations from one of parents accepting the novelty and spontaneous uniqueness of their children to one where parents use biotechnology to choose and control the biological nature of their children”(Foht). There is a special relationship between children and their parents that may be disappearing very soon due to these techniques. Children could be born never truly knowing one of their genetic parents. If these procedures continue to prosper people will have to “accept arrangements that split apart the various biological and social aspects of parenthood, and that deliberately create
There are bioethics arguing that parents have the right to parental autonomy, which grants the right to decide the gender of their baby (Ly, Sarah). Although it is believe people have been influenced that the gender of their babies has to do with timing of conception, types of positions performed, and the food consumed when the embryo was developing (Gender Selection of Babies). It has been known that these specific methods are not one hundred percent effective, some people are finding it exceptionally easier to go to the doctor and have the embryo genetically engineered to their specific preferences (Regalado, Antonio). Some people are just looking at the few positive effects of designer babies, and are not getting the full research before putting not only themselves, but their future children through.
In their research article, “Genetic modification and genetic determinism”, David B. Resnik and Daniel B. Vorhaus argue that all the nonconsequentialist arguments against genetic modification are faulty because of the assumption that all the traits are strongly genetically determined, which is not the case. Resnik and Vorhaus dispel four arguments against genetic modification one-by-one. The freedom argument represents three claims: genetic modification prevents the person who has been modified from making free choices related to the modified trait, limits the range of behaviors and life plans, and interferes with the person 's ability to make free choices by increasing parental expectations and demands (Resnik & Vorhaus 5). The authors find this argument not convincing, as genes are simply not “powerful” enough to deprive a person of free choice, career and life options. In addition to that, they argue that parental control depends not on genetic procedure itself, but rather on parents’ basic knowledge of what the results of the modification should be. In a similar fashion, the giftedness arguments, which states that “Children are no longer viewed as gifts, but as
“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”)
The concept of designer babies is a highly disputed topic. Some say that it is mainly beneficial because it can enhance and cure, but some would say otherwise because they see it as unethical and ultimately causing problems within society. Most parents would want the best for their child, so ‘improving’ them or ‘making them better’ makes sense. Which school a child goes to and which hobbies they take part in can be choices that a parent makes, which in turn hopefully makes the child’s life better. Genetic engineering could become a common practice and be another choice for parents to make, but is it just going too far?