Purdy Genetics And Reproductive Risk Summary

Though the use of pre-natal hereditary screening is as of now utilized as a part of high-hazard pregnancies for recognition of illness, for example, Down syndrome and Huntington 's chorea (Ridley 55, 98). As researchers decide the qualities for extra hereditary conditions, screening of incipient organisms will give more data to potential biological parents, former to their offspring has advanced. On the off chance that a screened embryo were found to convey qualities for a specific malady or inability, its guardians may specifically prematurely end it. This gives parents a choice of raising a child with a disability or back out if they don’t have the means to support the child financially, physically, emotionally or mentally. This is a good thing despite what others say because if a child is born with a disability in to family that doesn’t have the means to support it, it is unfair to all parties

1. Laura Purdy argues against having children if there is a 50 percent chance that the child will have a genetic disease like Huntington Disease, unless the parents go for prenatal screening and will have an abortion if the test comes back positive that the child has the disease. One reason why she believes this is because the child deserves to have a full, happy, healthy life like other healthy children. She believes that the child will not have a normal life like most children. For instance in accordance with Huntington Disease, the child will be filled with anxiety of potentially getting the disease and being in constant fear to when the disease will take its course.

What if you could pick your child’s traits? Sounds like a fantasy doesn’t it? Well you might be wrong. Scientists around the world are working on Genetic Modifications in human beings. This allows a specialist to pick the strongest traits in an embryo and get rid of the bad ones. Imagine a world where there would be no cancer, no diabetes, no everything. A world with the strongest, fastest, and smartest human beings would be the outcome. I personally think this is a great idea for the advancement of the human race. I think it would be amazing to have my asthma taken away as an embryo. The positives outweigh the negative and Ronald Green agrees with me. In his article he includes Logos, an understanding tone, Satire, and Pathos.

The use of genetic engineering shouldn't give parents the choice to design their child because of the act of humans “playing” God, the ethics involved in interfering with human lives, and the dangers of changing human genes. Because of recent technological advances in "designer babies", parents

However, it doesn’t mean that people are not going to have disabled babies even though they have gone through testing prior to birth. In many cases, advanced techniques fail to tell if the baby will have psychological problems which can only be discovered after birth. Moreover, this doesn’t mean that parents or future parents cannot have kids for fear of having a disabled child. For example, in the article called “Deaf Culture and Cochlear Implants” by Boinne Poitra’s Tucker says that culturists of deaf society advocate that is mandatory to have a genetic test to see if the child is going to be born deaf as they believe is the best for him. However, if a potential parent is deaf or there is genetic factor that put in the predicament of having a disable child, they can have the test done before conceiving to know how the child is going to be or to choose other ways of making a family. Another approach for parents about having a child with Down syndrome is to abort that fetus. For example, there are tests to detect if a child has Down syndrome early in the pregnancy. Now, it is my argument that why bring to this world a human being that will suffer in many areas including socially, cognitively, and biologically. Moreover, in the reading “The Infant Does Case” there was a case in which a woman has a Down syndrome baby with major

The escalating supremacy and receptiveness of genetic technology to engineer and "design babies," now gives parents the option to modify their unborn children, consecutively to prevent their offspring's from receiving genetic disorders such as: "sickle cell diseases, cystic fibrosis and down syndrome ," or conceivably, make them blue eye coloured, intelligent or else blessed with enviable qualities. Would this mean there will be an increase in the superiority among the rich, both physically and mentally, or will this modification be available for all to exploit, or would we be evidencing engineered babies facing unexpected genetic predicament? The highly contentious issue of designing unborn children to be a perfect "epitome" is thoroughly investigated and examined in the article of, lead author of

When you look at society today, it is plausible to say half of the population is affected by cancer or disease. Now based on the millions of people on this earth, this assumption is not one to be proud of. Day by day and year by year medical advancements have been in affect and so far helping decrease the number of deadly cases of disease. Recently researchers have made a major breakthrough in the field of medicine. Technology has become so advanced that physicians are able to detect disease present in genes inside a fetus before it is completely developed. Because they are now able to identify the gene, it brings up a whole new topic of altering specific genes upon our children to physically enhance them. In most cases, parents would choose to enhance these genes to have athletic or musically talented child. Now whether you think this is ethical or not is up to you however, I will be evaluating three articles on this topic and presenting the argument for each one.

The mother may decide to conduct a genetic test or speak to her children about the potential risk of inheriting Huntington’s disease, this is an option a family may have knowing the medical genealogy.

Another ethical debate reigns in the choice for HD patients to have children and in prenatal screening for HD. Since HD is generally not diagnosed until later in life, many patients have children before their HD diagnosis (Ethical issues of genetic diagnosis, 2007). The children of one parent with HD have a 50% chance of developing the disease themselves. However, if a patient tests positive for the gene that causes Huntington's disease before having children, conflicts could arise between partners about whether or not to even have children (Ethical issues of genetic diagnosis, 2007 and Tassicker, Savulescu, Skene, Marshall, Fitzgerald & Delatycki, 2003). The predictive genetic test for HD can also be performed before a baby is born. If

This would alleviate future suffering and hardships for that individual (Wadhaw). These technologies would help expecting parents edit unfavorable traits out. Designer babies would also be more accessible to the upper class because such procedures cost several tens of thousands of dollars (Ridley). Genetically inherited diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and color blindness could also be prevented. For example, if two parents had sickle cell anemia, there is a high possibility that their baby will get it as well.

Parents may have to make difficult decisions like whether or not they want their children to have a specific disorder or not. In addition, not everyone finds specific traits as “undesirable”, and may proceed to make the child have that trait. What becomes tricky is the idea of giving a child a defect or condition that makes life difficult, like “should a deaf parent who embraces his or her condition be permitted to select an embryo apt to produce a child unable to hear?” (Para 6) Some parents may find giving their children a specific condition will prepare the child to handle more challenges in life.

The gene for Huntington’s disease is fatal, and if passed down, the offspring will develop the disease at some point in their life ("Genes and Human Disease"). This means that if one parent is affected, which in this case happens to be Alice and Nancy’s mother, there is a 50% chance that each of them will acquire the fatal gene. Alice also learns that her mother’s father and her three uncles passed away due to Huntington’s. This heritable nature of Huntington’s causes many ethical issues for Alice, which will be discussed next.

The birth of a child is supposed to be a time of joy, the uncertainty of life leads to this one point in time. Will she or he be the next president, a star athlete, a genius or just fall into the crowd as another citizen. With recent advancements in science, this uncertainty has become a thing of the past. The human being is now seen as a commodity and no more is valued in the uncertainty of individuality. The parent can now choose how they want their child to come out or develop into. Sandel’s book The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Case of Modern Eugenics is a well researched look into examples of modern eugenics and the problems that arise from it. These topics range from the ethics of cloning, athletes using performance enhancing drugs, and other practical uses in everyday life. Sandel’s argument is that there is value in human nature (even with all its flaws), and genetic engineering will forever change human nature. Destroying the very essence of what it is to be human and scarring humanity. The main features of human nature that will be altered: are responsibility, humility and solidarity.

However, while all of these reasons might be valid to some parents, they are always people who oppose these modern technologies. Hilary Freeman disagrees. She feels parents would want to be able to choose merely for social reasons. Plus, she values the ideal that “babies are not commodities. They are not born to satisfy our desires or dreams and we cannot dispose of them if they don’t meet our requirements” (2). She feels that there is one and only one condition in which the parents should be able to choose; and this is on the basis of medicinal purposes. If the child is likely to inherit genes for a condition which is harmful to them such as hemophilia or muscular dystrophy. She also adds that wanting a balanced family is a shallow concept. She doesn’t agree with it, or see any value in it.

By examining the genetic makeup of the fetus, inducing changes in his or her embryonic stem cells could modify the genes. Studies show that most parents want only the best for their child and by enhancing his or her genes allows the child to be the best. From the perspective of a child genetically modified, this threatens his or her freedom of action. Whether the child succeeds in life is not wholly determined by his or her efforts to do well, but determined by decisions made by parents before birth. No longer able to accept responsibility for the things the child does, it is speculated that parents will no longer view their children as something they are obligated to raise and love. Instead, the parents would see their child almost like a mere consumer product that they have high expectations for before they buy it. The freedom of action a child has would be destroyed through a parent’s high expectations.