The Pros And Cons Of Genetic Engineering

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Whether we see it or not, genetic engineering is widely used in our society today. Genetic engineering at its core is the editing of genetic material. Many applications of this technology that we see commonly, are in foods for example corn or soybeans, and even in animals to give them favourable traits. Deducing from that statement, the industry that it is most prevalent in is clearly the farming industry. These techniques make it possible to edit the genes of certain crops to make them more resistant to weather conditions or even to pests. They can do the same things with animals. Some of the uses in this case is to make stronger, better animals or even make the products of those animals have improved qualities.
However, aside from …show more content…

Some test-tube babies, like Louise Brown who was the first test-tube baby ever [7], are completely fine and well to this day but there still is no long term studies to show that this practice is safe in a long term perspective. Especially in egg donors who use a hormone to speed up their egg production, the practice may potentially cause cancer down the road in children who are born from these egg cells [8]. Now there are endless ethical and moral issues that we can bring up when it comes to the topic of genetic engineering in humans, some of them being lack of diversity and cloning. At the same time, we must understand that the potential with this technology is huge if only we can develop it to work effectively. The problem arises that to get high quality research done, the technology needs to be applied to humans for testing. Now these are human lives that are being dealt with. As with all advancements in technology, sacrifices have had to been made but it is a whole different story when dealing with human lives …show more content…

Lives have been lost due to testing and it is creating huge ethical debates. Also, whether GMO crops are safe and whether cross contamination of genes between crops could be an environmental problem, these are other issues that need to be addressed. For humans, the bottom line is that this technology is not currently ready. It is commonly used in plants and animals and humans do consume these products but for use in human genetics itself, it should not be used yet. Genetic engineering is hugely debated but also can have vast applications when the technology is mastered and fully

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