While Designer Babies may have an effect on new discoveries in the biology world, it also has psychological effects on the designer baby and society as a whole. If the parents are able to choose what their child looks like, they are expecting the child to already look a certain way. This is setting up the parents’ expectations of what their child will be. If the child does not meet their expectations, the parents may neglect them more so than they would of a naturally created child. A parent should love their child no matter what they look like, even if it is not what they especially want. Also, a naturally born child may become more neglected compared to the designer baby because parents may think that child is more special. This type of genetic modification creates an opportunity for countries “such as China and India where boys are favored over girls, this technology could be used so that every set of parents that wants a baby boy will get one.” (Ahmad). This could ultimately harm society because if there is a lack in one gender, the ability to reproduce would be diminished. Also, the more genetically modified children are found throughout society, it would lead to a lack of individuality. This could have detrimental effects of not only social atmospheres, but also in the genetic gene pool and could complicate reproduction in the human population. Genetically modifying children’s genes may also lead to social problems. It could create a “race or class” of genetically modified children who may think they are superior to non-genetically modified children. Mona Ahmad also brings up the point that “The people who were not genetically engineered would experience a loss of opportunity based on a chance that their defective genes will be expressed. In this new society, people with a 50% chance of cancer would get passed over for a job in favor of the person with .01% chance of cancer.” Technology has had a tremendous effect on how we live our lives ranging from how we find information to the way we travel across the country. Technology is also changing the life of some new children. A new system of genetic engineering essays about economics, referred to as “Designer Babies,” genetically modifies the DNA of a fetus to achieve desirable traits among them. This ultimately changes their life, sometimes for better or for worse. While it may seem to some that designer babies are beneficial, they actually cause more harm than good because it goes against nature. Although genetically modifying babies has benefits, there are more negative and unpredictable effects that can result from it. The process of changing an unborn baby’s DNA is very delicate and if the process is not done correctly, the embryo may be destroyed, which would defeat the whole process of trying to improve the baby’s future life; if it ends its life, then there will not be a future for it to live for. Also, genetic engineering on babies could back fire on another gene. According to Biology major Mona Ahmad, genetically modifying a child’s certain gene for one thing could also affect and turn off genes which control other important factors. Producing a child without autism could lead to even more problems, like anger management problems. This could potentially be harmful to society as it could increase the amount of violence throughout the world. There are two main reasons why curing diseases with this new technology is wrong. Firstly, it is now possible to detect genetic disorders such as Down syndrome and TaySachs disease, and then the parents have the option to abort the fetus (Giunta). It is possible to receive a false-positive result while being tested. This means that there have been many embryos, future human beings that have been killed needlessly. Secondly, let’s say we use this research to get rid of all genetically transferred diseases. This could affect the flow of the world’s population. The world’s resources are already running out contests essay, if the population goes up then there is no telling what could happen (Giunta). There still are positive reasons for getting rid of diseases using PGD. It can save a human being from suffering his/her whole life.
A baby born in England was chosen in the embryonic stage to undergo genetic testing, called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, also known as PGD (Britt). This was so she could be free of a gene that linked to certain type of cancer. A forty-year-old woman underwent PGD because she had Alzheimer’s disease and was afraid of passing it on to her child. From there she implanted embryos without that gene into her womb (Britt). This gave her the miracle of a healthy baby girl, free of Alzheimer’s. Currently, PGD is only used for similar cases such as the ones above best place buy research papers, curing babies of life-affecting diseases. Many people would agree that this is for the greater good of the planet but there are negative results that would come out of this. Also, in the future essays about stress, PGD could be able to help parents decide what kind of baby they desire. Imagine a world where parents can choose their ideal baby out of a catalogue, being able to ask for an athletic, intelligent, and social child with blue eyes and blonde hair. It would be as easy as ordering a hamburger with all of your favourite toppings in a restaurant. The real question is where to draw the line. Using PGD to cure diseases before birth is questionable, but using PGD just to give a child a competitive edge is unethical. “Steinberg has jumped on my research but I'm totally against this. My goal is to screen embryos to help couples have healthy babies free of genetic diseases. Traits are not diseases." To rewind this discussion to the very beginning covering letters uk jobs, to strip away the possibilities and hypothetical cases, and the vast future advances in technology, this case comes down to moral rights and wrongs. With our current technology that is able to select specific embryos for implantation into a mother, what are the moral wrongs in the use of this science? To repeat an argument made earlier, by selecting specific embryos and discarding the rest, a parent is disallowing a life to be lived. A life that has the potential to be brilliant dissertation writing services in uk, such is the case of Steven Hawking. Another scientist can be used as an example, brought to light by David Weisbrot in the debate 'There is nothing wrong with designer babies'. This scientist was curious to see his own genetic make-up, and underwent a procedure that screened his DNA best website to check plagiarism, in order to find potential genetic mutilations and diseases within his DNA. This man found hundreds of problematic diseases that, had his parents used genetic screening during birth, would have meant that he would not exist. Ironically, that man is James Watson, Nobel Prize winner for his investigations and detailed model of the human gene. One can never fully disregard the possibility that one of those lives not picked might have proven to be an important figure in society. He tells the Sunday Telegraph (28 Feb, 2009): “It’s incredibly exciting. I live in LA and everyone here wants to have a straight nose and high cheekbones and [they] are perfectly happy to pay for cosmetic surgery. I understand the trepidation and concerns ready to buy research papers, but we cannot escape the fact that science is moving forward. If I have to get smacked around by people who think it is inappropriate, then I'm willing to live with that." Dr William Kearns, a leading geneticist, outlined the advances in technology and how the world of science has now grasped the ability to prevent fatal diseases in unborn children. However, Dr Steinberg’s leaps in making trait and embryo selection available have outraged Dr Kearns. Since this statement, his clinic has strived to develop technology from genetic observation and cosmetic surgery in order to pick physical traits of unborn children. This includes hair, eye and skin colour and physical capabilities. Genetic selection will ultimately affect one of the cornerstones of society, diversity. By prescreening for certain desirable traits, parents will ultimately lean towards certain characteristics that will eliminate variation and individuality. Saxton supports this argument when she states that “Contributions of human beings cannot be judged by how we fit into the mold of normalcy, productivity, or cost-benefit. People who are different from us (whether in color, ability dissertation research proposal help, age or ethnic origin) have much to share about what it means to be human” (108). Saxton brings up the perspective that diversity is ironically the thread that holds society together. People are connected by the fact that everyone was born with a set of attributes that one must learn to live with. The question that unites society is “why am I here as I am?” If someone is given the power to create the basic foundations of another being this sense of purpose is lost. Genetic prescreening for desirable traits is unethical, unless it is used to protect the child from threatening diseases. As seen from Lemonick’s “Designer Babies”, new advancements in medical technologies will eventually allow parents to choose traits for their child. This situation will inevitably prove to be controversial in society and may even cause a break between those who can afford to pay to have their “designer baby” and those who can not or will not. A generation of designer babies would be detrimental to society’s overall standings, judgments and beliefs. Using genetic screening for preventing a hazardous life for a child is ethical because the pain and suffering that the child would go through is not worth the risk. However, using genetic screening for what it was not created for, such as choosing desirable traits, goes against human morals and the laws of nature. Human culture depicts a constant drive for perfection in all aspects of life. People are determined to achieve the best jobs, the best homes and the best form of “living”. Yet there seems to be no point where this controlling behavior will stop. As showcased in Time Magazine’s article “Designer Babies”, recent technological advancements in medicine and science have allowed potential parents to genetically screen for preferred traits in their fetus. Genetic testing for traits that are hazardous to the child’s health is understandable company essay writing, however it is unethical to screen for “superficial” traits and desired characteristics for one’s child. The use of genetic prescreening on the basis of physical and mental characteristics is immoral and based on wrongful judgments put in place by society. The skin color, hair color, eye color and other physical traits of a child are only outside traits that do not reflect the capabilities of that child. These traits should be chosen by the natural world and thus add to the overall person that the child will become. Thus by predetermining a child’s personality, the child does not get the chance to develop his or her own “self”. This reinforces society’s stereotypes of the “perfect people” and discrimination of those children that do not get genetic testing to look or behave like the norm. This could ultimately cause a split in society as Princeton’s Silver described in the Times article, “a scenario in which society splits into two camps essays on the holocaust, the “gen-rich” and the “gen-poor”, those with and those without the designer genome” (Lemonick 4).
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