Genetic Engineering DBQ Essay

We are living is a world where very soon it will be possible for people to create ‘designer babies’ that have all the features they wish for. In the article Building Baby from the Genes Up, Ronald M. Green talks about all the positive impacts that genetic modification of human beings can have on our future generations. Green acknowledges some of the negatives such as parents creating perfect children and being able to give them any trait the parent wants. However in the end he comes to the conclusion that the positive impacts of getting rid of genes that cause obesity, cancer, learning disorders, and many other diseases and disorders, outweighs the negative aspects. Richard Hayes, author of Genetically Modified Humans? No Thanks, takes the stance that we should not be able to change anything about human beings through genetic modification. He believes that once we start modifying a few features, it will slowly turn into every parent altering as many of their babies’ genes that they want. While he does acknowledge the positive impacts of getting rid of negative genes such as Tay-Sachs, he believes that it is not worth the risk of having parents manipulate all their future children’s genes to their liking. Green and Hayes stand on opposite sides of the debate about genetic modification of human beings and this essay will explore the similarities and the differences of their articles.

Technology is developing every day. The automobile was revolutionary, and then they introduced the plane. Cell phones can connect us with people around the world. Self-driving cars are in development today! Revolutionary inventions are the expectation nowadays, but a new discovery is sparking controversial questions in the science world. Is it acceptable to alter a baby’s genes to make it a better human? Genes are the instruction book of the body, and they determine everyone’s attributes and how people act in their environment (Medical News Today). Some people say that everyone is different for a reason, and others think customizing the genes of children was meant to happen. Altering an infant’s genes is acceptable to prevent hereditary diseases, but the line should be drawn at making an artificially smarter, stronger, or prettier human.

During the course of history, there have been many scientific achievements. The discovery of electricity, landing on the moon, and the creation of the internet. The amount of achievements that have been accounted for throughout the course of history is uncanny. However, as technology advances throughout the course of history, the scientific achievements start to seem fictional. One example of this is genetic engineering, to be able to alter DNA in order to create something that is unnatural. Scientists have been able to use the genetic engineering that is done on plants and manipulate it to alter the DNA of both humans and animals. By doing this, scientists are now able to create embryos that can have certain qualities that they within individual.

Also, you can eliminate any possible diseases or mental disorders. Some mental disorders or diseases could be Aids, Autism, etc. Long life is guaranteed with the help of genetic engineering, as for Vincent from "Gattaca", since he wasn't genetically modified, he isn't given long to live. For crops, you can make crops that pests and diseases can't infect them. You could have the perfect family and everything could possibly be perfect with genetic engineering, but you shouldn't always trust it.

It is incredible to see how far genetic engineering has come. Humans, plants, and any living organism can now be manipulated. Scientists have found ways to change humans before they are even born. They can remove, add, or alter genes in the human genome. Making things possible that humans (even thirty years ago) would have never imagined. Richard Hayes claims in SuperSize Your Child? that genetic engineering needs to have limitations. That genetic engineering should be used for medical purposes, but not for “genetic modification that could open the door to high-tech eugenic engineering” (188). There is no doubt that genetic engineering can amount to great things, but without limits it could lead the human race into a future that no one

The process is aesthetic in nature and unnatural. This carries more weight than the fact that an individual can eradicate certain genetic diseases (Wivel&Walters, 1993).Through the process of genetic modification, doctors can even change the sex of a fetus as long as their clients pay for it. That is very unnatural. As the technology advances, it will be possible to change many features of a fetus like its eye colors and even develop certain desirable traits in them like a good personality, height, skin color, hair color, academic abilities, athletic skills, and so forth. The ethical aspect of such developments is questionable. The born child will be unnatural (Kogan, Doherty,&Gitschier, 1987). Thus, the morality of the technology is not acceptable. Moreover, since the science is imperfect, the desired traits in a child may fail, and the parents would develop resentments towards the child in future. It is also worrying how a genetically modified kid would behave once it learns that it is not natural like everyone

The human body itself should never be modified to that of a so-called perfect specimen, there is no such thing. Yet, there is with the obsession with designer babies, where one can seemly develop their perfect child within the womb. As such, Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow wrote that gene therapy “evokes fear of playing God, of technological experimentation gone horribly awry, even of the end of humanity as we know it.” (Tuhus-Dubrow, par 70). And states that “Many people condone health-related genetic tinkering, but not a cosmetic kind.” (Tuhus-Dubrow, par

New technology that promises to make it possible to edit genetic information and to alter and or screen for genetic disease and defects prior to birth has to be one of the most controversial topics of all times. Reproductive technologies such as Preimplantation Genetic Diagnoses (PGD) and CRSPR, which involves RNA and the enzyme nuclease to edit genes, have given humanity the power to direct its own evolution. Anyone would agree that people should have the freedom to choose what they want and how they want it, but at the same time, it seems that humanity has gone way too far. Altering genes and picking cosmetic traits for an offspring is not a natural process, which can cause controversy among religious and philosophical individuals. As described in the articles, the immediate barriers lay upon practical and philosophical questions that

With this, we will be able to tackle some of the most deadly and disastrous diseases (Rinkesh). With genetic engineering it is possible to live longer, to abolish diseases that could kill early on, and help humans adapt to the growing problems of things like global warming (Rinkesh). There are very few examples where genetic engineering is the only good solution to the medical problem of a genetic disease (Human Genetics Alert). It has the possibility of being a cure for disease, but it is still extremely unsafe. It can cause huge problems to the human body. It could cause babies to die early on. Genetic engineering could also cause a new disease we may not be able to stop with genetic engineering. It is wrong to mess with nature and play the role of God

The issue at hand is that scientists are in a period of enlightenment with the human genome and with no standard line of ethics pertaining to editing human embryos in research development other countries are taking liberty to beat around the bush to explore this concept of eugenics. After the cloning of dolly the goat and China cloning two monkeys without a genetic blood disease through a process called CISPR society are asking the same question. Are scientists taking this too far before it is ready? Anyone who plans on reproducing or has genetic diseases in their family may want to consider a side in this debate because they may find themselves with the option of “editing” their baby with the ideal gene pool. This issue is prevalent because the entire world is tempering with human genes and is working towards introducing a whole new set of humans by this technology. Gene manipulation is an important topic because of the ethical and spiritual beliefs that it challenge. Changing genetic material to where there is no disease would affect the entire next population of humans and their future children. While scientists now know how to change our physical traits and handicaps they cannot take out traits like ambitiousness which is what makes manipulating the human genome so dangerous. The risks is that this chase for curing disease could turn into a quest for the ideal human where in the future parents can grocery shop their child or countries can create the ultimate human race.

The possibilities for applying genetic engineering to change the human genome are immense. There are genes that offer protection against diseases such as cancer and acquired immunodeficiency virus (AIDS), genes that code enhanced senses and intelligence, anything we can imagine. For example, many animals have skills we do not possess like limb regeneration. With this being a possibility to get at on a trip to the doctor’s office many people that have lost limbs whether it was while out in war of because of a disease would get the option to get the limb back if their parents had inserted the limb regeneration gene in them when they were still a fetus. If a gene against cancer or AIDS was inserted into humans when they were still in fetus form, the world would have less health problems to worry about. Also, it may be possible in the foreseeable future to go to the doctor and have a gene "inserted" that gives rise to a stronger immune system and this could also be done to fetuses. Imagine inserting that gene into your future child so that when they started to get sick in the future they would not have to worry too much about it because it was already taken care of when they were still forming and their immune system is strong enough to combat most diseases. Everybody hates being sick so this would be one of the best things because they would recover faster than people do

There are many benefits of genetic engineering, but there are many risks too. Genetic engineering is the direct manipulation of genetic material in order to alter the hereditary traits of a cell, organism, or population. Basically, scientists take DNA of one product and put it into another product to get a mixture of traits from both products. It’s like breeding different breeds of dogs to get a certain look or personality. Some people don’t mind what goes into genetically altered foods, while others feel uncomfortable with the idea of eating any of it. The effects that genetic engineering has on the environment, living organisms and the product being engineered have been widely talked about up until the last few years where the amount of

     There isn’t any background information of human genetic engineering because it is perceived as unmoral, but there are many comparable instances of altering genes. Genetic engineering is the largest food experiment in the history of the world. “More than 100 million acres of the world's most fertile farmland were planted with genetically modified crops last year, about 25 times as much as just four years earlier”(King,1999). There is a series on genetic engineering of food crops, genetic engineers are now moving genes around among plants and animals. The attempt to improve the human race genetically relates to someone creating a specialized breed of horses or dogs. “In the early decades of the 20th century, eugenics projects in the U.S. led to forced sterilization of some people who were considered to have undesirable

Genetic Engineering GENETIC ENGINEERING Within a short period of time, genetic engineering has turned into one of the biggest growth areas in scientific research .It appears regularly in the media although the general public have no idea the meaning. It is currently one of the most sensitive areas of ethical debate.1 Genetic engineering however is a variety of techniques used to transfer a desirable gene from one organism to another, where it can be expressed. This means that the required product can be synthesised within the new organism.

Many scientists today are all trying to prefect the studies of genetic engineering, also known as cloning. This has become one of the most popular studies of this decade. Scientist says that with genetic engineering the human race can live forever. For some people cloning could be the greatest experiment of all time, but also it could be the most dangerous and harmful experiment that was ever attempted. Why do we feel the need to clone humans, animals? Should we just let human live and die just like god intended or should we try to be immortal? As you read on you the reader decides if genetic engineering is the greatest experiment we ever attempted or should we band cloning forever.