Sitting in the hospital waiting room, the doctor’s condolences wash over you as you desperately try to make sense of his words: “Anencephaly. It’s a rare genetic disorder. I’m sorry, but there’s no treatment or cure. Your son has a few weeks at most.” Every year 7.8 million children are born with a serious birth defect of genetic or partly genetic origin. (The Global Toll of Birth Defects) Imagine if this number could be halved or even reduced to a quarter of the original number. Should we not try to reduce this number? It is in our best interests to do so. The most effective way to do that is through gene editing. Thanks to advancements in gene editing technology, a future with far less genetic defects and diseases is not that far away. Professor Julian Savulescu states that “Gene editing could be used to cure genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis or thalassaemia (the blood disease that the Chinese researchers were working to eliminate). At present, there are no cures for such diseases.” While disputants will insist that prenatal screening for genetic selection could allow couples to simply choose a healthy embryo, “genetic selection doesn’t benefit patients - it’s not a cure. It merely brings a different person, who is free from disease, into existence. Future …show more content…
When scientists set out to cure blindness, there were hardly any naysayers. So why does the concept of gene-editing frighten so many people? It is essentially the same; scientists are trying to cure a disadvantageous condition. The answer is because people fear the unknown. But as bioethicist Henry Greely says, “Choices will be made, and if informed people do not participate in making those choices ignorant people will make them.” (Ball) Surely it is better to regulate this technology now than to outlaw it, which would only slow the
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.
Genetic engineering is the figurehead of the ethical concerns of scientists in the 21st century. Nothing is more engrossed with criticism and dislike than the idea of altering the baseline for living organisms. Many people are skeptical of genetic engineering due to the versatility it exhibits. A scientist could use a genetic editing tool, such as CRISPR, to remove the genes for a hereditary disease in an embryo, but they could also utilize it to alter the physical characteristics of a human baby. This thought provoked the flood gates of ethics to unleash a multitude of unanswered questions and concerns about the usage and further development of genetic engineering. The field of genetic engineering is
According to Antonio Regalado, 15% of adults think it would be fine to alter a baby’s genes to make it smarter. However, 46% think it is acceptable to fix a newborn’s genes to reduce the risk of serious illnesses (Doc. 4). The unique thing about the world is that every single person is different. If genetic engineering gets out of hand, it could lead to a “dystopia of superpeople and designer babies for those who can afford it” (Doc. 3). Once altering the genes of humans is feasible, international rules should be made so that diseases from mutated genes can be fixed, but messing with the child’s attributes are illegal. That way, every country’s government can prevent a future dystopia before it
There are many incurable diseases in the world that affect an organism’s way of living. Cystic Fibrosis, a disease with no known cure, affects 1 out of 3600 Canadian child’s digestive system and lungs, while a person with sickle cell anemia is only expected to live forty to sixty years. Both of these diseases are similar in the way that they are inherited genetically; they are passed on from parents to their children. Scientists are producing a way to help these people called Genetic Engineering. This is a way of modifying an organism’s genome to produce a more desirable trait by manually adding new DNA.
Imagine this: twenty years from now, when you get married you figure out what you want your child to look like. You go outside, everyone looks like a model with perfect teeth and are each geniuses. In another ten years, kids start having purple skin, gold eyelashes and look how aliens might appear. Why have two arms when you can have eighty-six? You never know where looks could go when you make the impossible possible! This world would be possible if gene editing in babies was allowed, but is this the future we want? What happens if bad things or other defects start to creep in and we do not realize it? Gene editing defies religious beliefs, it can cause further discrimination, and the child has to pay the consequences of your decision.
magine, 20 years from now, sitting in a cold doctor's office deciding the genes of your unborn baby, what color hair, eyes, speed of metabolism, height would you even know what to pick? Impossible you might say but in this day and age technology is growing ever so rapidly that picking the genetic makeup of your baby is closer than you might think. The technology is called CRISPR. This technology doesn't only have the ability to change physical traits, but genetic traits specifically genetic abnormalities and diseases. 20 years ago, no one would have ever thought we would have the answer to, in theory, cure every genetic disease from sickle cell anemia to cystic fibrosis. However, with great scientific breakthroughs comes questioning and
As technology is improving, there is becoming more of a debate for if parents should get their kids genetically tested. There are three reasons why you shouldn’t, it produces anxiety, finds unknown information, and it can find incurable diseases.
If you were able to pick what characteristics your child is going to have, would you? From the color of their hair, to maybe even their sexuality. Is it okay to alter the characteristics of your child based on your own opinion of who you want them to be? What about the question of a baby being required to have a genetic screening before or right after birth? Should that be allowed to happen with the fact of the parents, or anyone for that matter, not knowing who is going to have access to these records? In a scientific manner, this seems like it is not that big of a deal. Thinking about this ethically is the what everyone is concerned about. I do not think that this is ethically okay. Where do we draw the line?
Deciding whether or not you want to know more about your genetic makeup is a very personal decision that may seem like an easy one, but it’s not. As direct-to-consumer genetic testing is growing as an industry, it is becoming easier and cheaper for people to learn unique personal things about themselves, like ancestry composition, food preferences, and physical features. However, these tests can also inform people of genetic predispositions to diseases. Although some people believe that knowing all of this genetic information can be dangerous, monitored DNC tests can be very informative and beneficial.
Those that oppose human germ-line engineering may argue that in changing the genes of future children, the potential for mistakes is present. “Designer babies” could be born with some sort of defect as an unforeseen result of the engineering, which can then be passed on to the next generation. However, it is important to realize that with every decision come risks and room for mistakes. The idea is that the potential benefits outweigh the possible poor results. In an article for Business Insider, Ellie Kincaid states, “With a couple tweaks to the genome, certain diseases, even ones that aren 't genetic (like HIV), could become a thing of the past.” Over seventy-eight
If I could I would receive genetic testing to better inform myself if I was a carrier for this gene. I would want to know because regardless of how discouraged I may feel, being prepared for the future of my family is important to me. I would want to know so that this way I could plan and make any arrangements necessary to help my family out.
Eugenics is a topic that puzzled people’s consciousness for decades. Placing worth on a human, an idea that many people find unsettling yet confirms beneficial by evolving our race into an improved species. Today, eugenics appears on a new face with emerging technologies, creating possibilities for scientists to modify people’s DNA. The goal of these methods lies in creating an advanced form of eugenics, with probabilities like modifications to fix health problems and wanted traits, and to create designer babies. Furthermore, scientists started testing this idea of genetic modification, but ended up with mixed results. In a few cases, they accomplished their goal, but others concluded in unexpected problems. Thus, the recent technologies relating
Gene mutation or faulty genes cause certain diseases in the human body. Diseases such as sickle cell, cystic fibrosis and haemophilia are usually cause by faulty or mutated genes. The affected and their families usually face difficulties living their lives to the fullest due to health complications caused by these diseases. Advancement in science and technology has led to the development of techniques and procedures that can be used to modify or alter the human genome. This is termed genetic modification or engineering. Genetic modification can be done for various reasons, including replacing faulty genes, and selecting baby gender. The purpose of this essay is to summaries and pros and cons of this technology or concept and to review the findings
A few years ago, my neighbor got married and was ready to have a baby. Unfortunately, he and his wife’s pre-pregnancy check showed that they had a thalassemia gene, and if they gave birth to a child, the child was likely to die because of severe thalassemia. Although they want to have a child belonging to themselves, they finally chose to adopt a child. Thalassemia is a common genetic disease in my province, the local government calls on all couples to accept genetic screening before pregnancy to avoid newborns with severe thalassemia and avoid the original burden on the whole society and individuals families. Genetic screening is a major advance in human medical technology, which enables humans to improve their genes in this species. Hence, genetic screening should become a mandatory item for prenatal inspection.
Zoologist Dr. Weizhi Ji theorizes that this technology will be used to extend the human lifespan (481). Extending lifespans is an example of unneeded editing, and would increase the tremendous pressure on the already strained healthcare systems of the world, as well as the social security system in the United States. Likewise, removing genetic diseases would remove some pressure from the world healthcare systems; those that would be born with diseases would be born without them and any treatment they would have needed would be futile. Editing genes brings along with it a whole new set of benefits and drawbacks, by only allowing edits for genetic diseases and birth defects the amount of drawbacks is reduced drastically. Gene editing is brand new and there is no way to see all of it’s effects, but starting by only allowing the most vital edits the world is given a small but sufficient platform to analyze the effects of this new technology.