Essay on Genetic Engineering and the Pursuit of Perfection

Societies changing attitudes have resulted in fewer adoptions, the use of the contraceptive pill and development of birth technologies

What mid-evil technology enabled people to coordinate their activities and thus made possible a more productive use of human labor?

Although this may be the case in many areas of people’s lives today, it is not always beneficial, or necessary. People may have trouble deciding whether messing with human genes and cells is ethical. Designing the “perfect child” in many parent’s eyes becomes a harsh question of reality. The concept of a parent’s unconditional love for their child is questioned because of the desire to make their child perfect. If genetically engineering humans becomes a dominant medical option, people could have the chance to create their child however they like: from physical appearances, genetically enhanced genes, and the possibility to decide what a child thinks and acts, parents have access to designing their entire child. Naturally, people could be creating a super-human. Issues between different races, and eventually creating new prejudices against genetically engineered humans may increase. People may not realize how expensive genetic screening is at first. With only the rich being able to “enhance” their children, another social issue might occur, giving the world another type of people to outcast.

Advances in biotechnology have important applications to the core demographic concerns of human reproduction, raising a number of ethical issues. In the debate over this issue Kass the President’s council on Bioethics, with other scientist are nearly silent. In a critical discussion, Kass insists that producing and influencing babies in bottles is a gateway to a Brave New World. It is a way to maintain the population and keep the society from going into a revolution. However, in order maintain stability we must suppress all new scientific inventions along with artistic expression. Scientific research endangers humanity which can possibly threaten social order, which is why it must strictly be limited. Kass emphasizing on the technology itself

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

Gattaca brought about some interesting points on human evolution and human ingenuity. We live in a world where babies are left to chance and genetic metaling is frowned upon, but in Gattaca that idea is flipped. Society judges those who are left to God as inferior. How can one be judged for the decision of their parents? Science is moving into uncharted territory, where we might be able to create “super humans” as depicted in the movie. Gattaca revealed both the pros and cons of genetic engineering in science.

The principle of nonmaleficence, to do no harm, in reproductive technology can be applied to the prospective parents and the prospective child-the embryo. The procedures involved in attempting to impregnate a woman can be physically and emotionally damaging, but rewarding if done successfully. But the parties must first determine to what extent and at what cost will they risk to achieve their ultimate goal. It would cause great harm physically to the embryos if there were multiple unsuccessful attempts, but many would argue that the end outweighs the means, that it is worth it if the result was a viable pregnancy and healthy child.

Genetic engineering has become increasingly normalized in today’s society, and people are exposed to this technology now more than ever before. Most people are aware that food companies practice genetic engineering on their plants in order to design the most profitable crops, but it isn’t generally known that this same technology can be applied to humans. The concept of picking certain traits and characteristics of a human may appear desirable, but many risks and potential side effects may follow considering that it is unknown what genetic engineering could affect in future generations. Francis Fukuyama, an accomplished and distinguished professor of political economy and philosopher, conveys his concern that genetic engineering is developing at a surprisingly rapid rate. Within his book, Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution, he claims that genetic engineering not only will potentially be detrimental for the human race, but due to the change in nature of human beings, such engineering will also result in significantly impacting government and politics. Although genetic engineering can be seen as a huge technological advancement that could potentially help millions, there are drastic negative effects and reasons for disapproving genetic engineering that are too important to be overlooked.

Reproductive technology has come a long way in the last twenty years and continues to make expansive advances. The question "where do babies come from" is becoming harder and harder to answer. The response used to sound something like "when a man and a woman love each other very much…" now with in vitro fertilization, fertility drugs, and sperm/egg donors as well as future advances the answer will take on a new twist "…they go to see a doctor and look through a catalog to pick what kind of baby they want."

Author Chuck Klosterman said, “The simple truth is that we’re all already cyborgs more or less. Our mouths are filled with silver. Our nearsighted pupils are repaired with surgical lasers. We jam diabetics full of delicious insulin. Almost 40 percent of Americans now have prosthetic limbs. We see to have no qualms about making post-birth improvements to our feeble selves. Why are we so uncomfortable with pre-birth improvement?” Despite Klosterman’s accurate observation, there are reasons people are wearisome toward pre-birth enhancement. Iniquitous practices such as genetic engineering could lead to a degraded feeling in a child and conceivably end in a dystopian society, almost like the society Adolf Hitler had in mind. In the minds of

Genetic engineering is the process whereby new DNA is added or existing DNA is altered in an organism 's genome. This may involve changing one base pair (A-T or C-G) or deleting entire sections of DNA or adding additional copies of a gene. This results in creating new traits that were not previously present in the organism’s genome. This is done to selectively breed desired traits or to create plants with increased resistance to pesticides and increased tolerance to herbicides. For example insulin is a protein that regulates sugar content in our blood and is produced normally in the pancreas. Genetic engineering is used to produce a form of insulin that is similar to yeast and bacterial cells. This genetically engineered insulin is called

What if you could design your child before it was even born? What if you could cut out any life threatening diseases, make sure that your child is not susceptible to smoking addictions or alcoholism, and then make your child genius? Would you? Are you asking yourself how this could be done? Have you ever considered human genetic engineering?

associated with the use of advanced assisted reproductive technology (Teays&Purdy, 2001, Bioethics,Justice,&Health Care,p.648).Currently, the number of in vitro fertilization procedures that can be performed by 100 heath-care workers is about 1,000 per year. Any implication of medical and laboratory procedures that could improve results would decrease the number of healthcare workers needed and ultimately lower the cost per procedure (Teays&Purdy, 2001, Bioethics,Justice,&Health Care,p648).

“Genetic engineering differs from cloning in key ways. Whereas cloning produces genetically exact copies of organisms, genetic engineering refers to processes in which scientists manipulate genes to create purposefully different versions of organisms—and, in some cases, entirely new living things”, duplication of genetic cells is known as human cloning. Development of genetic engineering biotechnologies undermines the natural autonomy of life. Does genetic engineering interfere with God’s natural order or a manipulation of God creation and the intended purpose of our lives? Genetic engineering goes against the theological belief of the authority of God and religion governance order. This new paradigm of genetic engineering reproduction of life as we know is an interference of the creation of God’s and life. I believe if we continue the use of genetic engineering cloning it is against everything we believe in, genetic engineering is not God’s will and it should be prohibited,

He reasoned that there were certain rules by which these characteristics were inherited. He guessed that each plant must possess some sort of unit that specified its characteristics. In fact, each must have two units, one from each parent plant. If the plant inherited two different units, then one would override the other. This was called the dominant unit, and the one that was overridden was called the recessive unit. Mendel's theories were not discovered till 1900, and it began the science called genetics , the study of a physical inheritance. From this name, Mendel's units were changed into genes.