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Therapeutic Modification Essay

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After the ethical examination of both therapeutic and enhancement gene modification, it can be stated that therapeutic gene modification is a good thing and enhancement gene modification can be a bad thing. But the other issue is where do you draw the line between the two gene modifications. On paper it might seem like a clear cut distinction but take the example of children who use human growth hormone. Assume a child has a medical condition and their treatment stunts their growth, so they are prescribed human growth hormone. The human growth hormone is able to help the child grow to his normal hight thus returning him to the baseline. But now that there is a doctor prescribing human growth hormone, and different parent hear about this treatment …show more content…

I believe that there is nothing wrong with the therapeutic gene modification when it involves somatic cells. I think that it is our moral responsibility to do what we can to help save the lives of people who are suffering. The doctors who would be proscribing the treatment have all made a hippocratic oath so it would be their moral duty to follow through on using this particular treatment. Therapeutic gene manipulation with somatic cells would break any moral, ethical, or legal laws. But the other forms of genetic manipulation are a little tricky. Therapeutic gene manipulation of germ cells can be a useful treatment of disease but its effect plays a role in a larger scope then just the patient alone. I think that it poses a greater risk to the whole of humanity of we allow changes to germ cells and future generations. It would open the door to all other types of genetic manipulation. So rules have to be put in place so no abuse of medical treatment occurs. Finally there should not be any type of enhancement gene modification occurring. I think that it will overall produce more harm then good. It is not a medical procedure that is used to help people who are suffering it would simply be a mechanism that would only play a negative role in human development, simultaneously breaking many ethical rules along the way. Genetic

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