Genetic Engineering could it lead to a perfect society?
Ethical Issue Essay
Genetic engineering can serve many purposes. Cloning is done by a process called genetic engineering. When an animal or creature is cloned it has the same DNA as another living creature. Reproductive cloning could be used to produce animals with certain diseases for studying and testing. It could be used to repopulate endangered animals. Therapeutic cloning is when human embryos are produced in order to harvest their stem cells. Stem cells are important because researches believe they may one day be able to treat different diseases with them. It could possibly be used to produce organs for transplants or to replace damaged cells. They may be able to genetically alter pigs so that their organs could be harvested to transplant in humans. Human insulin is produced by recombinant DNA technology. That way people with diabetes can use it instead of animal produced insulin. It is also used to genetically alter foods to improve taste and nutritional value. They can alter plants to be resistant to bugs and herbicides. With all these great potential advancements comes a highly debated argument about the potential for bad things with this technology.
View Point One: Could cloning turn into another Hitler situation?
Many people are concerned with what cloning could mean in the future. People are concerned that it might one day be used for vain shallow purposes. Like selecting a child based on physical characteristics. Selecting a baby based on sex or possible IQ traits. Or on the thought that maybe one day people wouldn’t just have children any more. Children could all be screened and pre-selected to be as physically and mentally perfect as possible. The world might try to create a super human race. People with money and power would have greater access to these technologies. This could potentially further divide the upper class from the lower. If wealthy people were the only ones to be able to design their children than this could put a huge gap in what a child could do when they grew up. The designer children could be selected to be pro athletes or have extremely high IQ’s. Where as the children made the old fashioned way would have un unfair disadvantage. There is a very real possibility for abusing the power of cloning and genetic engineering.
View Point Two: Genetic engineering could screen embryos for curtain diseases to help infants be born healthy.
It could be used to prescreen embryos for genetic diseases. This would benefit everyone, not just the child and the family but society. If parents new that cancer ran in their family or Alzheimer’s they could possibly screen for it and select a child who would not be predisposed to get that illness. Imagine not having to have your child endure an illness you had suffered with. That would be the best gift you could give a child a life free from diseases. Scientists are already able to do this with curtain illness; like once that are only predominant in a curtain sex. They can implant the mother with eggs of the opposite sex. So that they wont have a child with the illness. Scientists are also working on making it possible to transplant animal organs to humans. This would do away with our waiting list. People die in our country every day waiting for a donor to save their lives. This could possibly be a miracle discovery if they could develop a way to use all animal organs. The potential for good is amazing.
View point three: Are fertilized eggs people too?
There are moral issues with stem cell research. Some people believe that a baby starts at conception even though it hasn’t yet attached to the mother. So they believe that when the sperm inters the egg it is already a human. They object to growing the egg to retrieve stem cells from it. Even if the stems cells could potentially help others, they do not believe it is right. They believe it is killing a human being. They are also concerned that unethical scientist might go beyond a few days of development. They are concerned that scientists could develop a way to grow a child with out a host mother and then harvest it’s organs. This is a real extreme to the argument but you never know where technology and research could lead to. The majority of supporters for this argument are members of religious organizations.
View Point 4: Stem cell research could help everyone.
The opposite side to that argument is that the egg hasn’t attached to a womb and that they only grow it for 5 days. So it is still just a group of cells at this stage. Many eggs do not attach to the womb even after being implanted so there is no way of knowing how many of these research eggs would have actually survived. There are also thousands of couple who collected their eggs threw invitro fertilization. When a couple gets pregnant with the child they wanted many of them still have unwanted eggs in the freezer. So what happens to them? Many of them may just be thrown away. If a couple chooses to donate their eggs for research shouldn’t they be allowed? The stem cells could be used to help thousands of people. They could help spinal cord injury victims. It also has the potential to treat other diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. The greater good seems to far out way the bad in their opinion current life is more important than potential life. Doctors, nurses and the majority or the medical community feel this way.
I think that the government or President Bush should allow stem cell research. I feel very strongly about this. I believe that who ever is the next president will allow the research to continue. I think there are far too many benefits to not continue. The diseases that this could help are extremely debilitating to the person and their whole family. This research could improve their quality of life. It would also be a benefit to society. A lot of the people living with Alzheimer’s and other diseases are living in care homes paid for by our taxes. So if people could live on their own longer it would be a benefit financially to our government. Over all the people living are more important than a potential embryo that hasn’t even been put inside a woman. To have stem cell research denied because it is a potential human but abortions in the third trimester legal in our country is absolute hypocrisy, it’s absurd. Overall there are endless benefits to all kinds of genetic engineering. That hopefully one day will unlock many medical mysteries. Maybe by the time we are senior citizens we won’t have to worry about losing our minds to Alzheimer’s.
Ethical Issue Essay
Genetic engineering can serve many purposes. Cloning is done by a process called genetic engineering. When an animal or creature is cloned it has the same DNA as another living creature. Reproductive cloning could be used to produce animals with certain diseases for studying and testing. It could be used to repopulate endangered animals. Therapeutic cloning is when human embryos are produced in order to harvest their stem cells. Stem cells are important because researches believe they may one day be able to treat different diseases with them. It could possibly be used to produce organs for transplants or to replace damaged cells. They may be able to genetically alter pigs so that their organs could be harvested to transplant in humans. Human insulin is produced by recombinant DNA technology. That way people with diabetes can use it instead of animal produced insulin. It is also used to genetically alter foods to improve taste and nutritional value. They can alter plants to be resistant to bugs and herbicides. With all these great potential advancements comes a highly debated argument about the potential for bad things with this technology.
View Point One: Could cloning turn into another Hitler situation?
Many people are concerned with what cloning could mean in the future. People are concerned that it might one day be used for vain shallow purposes. Like selecting a child based on physical characteristics. Selecting a baby based on sex or possible IQ traits. Or on the thought that maybe one day people wouldn’t just have children any more. Children could all be screened and pre-selected to be as physically and mentally perfect as possible. The world might try to create a super human race. People with money and power would have greater access to these technologies. This could potentially further divide the upper class from the lower. If wealthy people were the only ones to be able to design their children than this could put a huge gap in what a child could do when they grew up. The designer children could be selected to be pro athletes or have extremely high IQ’s. Where as the children made the old fashioned way would have un unfair disadvantage. There is a very real possibility for abusing the power of cloning and genetic engineering.
View Point Two: Genetic engineering could screen embryos for curtain diseases to help infants be born healthy.
It could be used to prescreen embryos for genetic diseases. This would benefit everyone, not just the child and the family but society. If parents new that cancer ran in their family or Alzheimer’s they could possibly screen for it and select a child who would not be predisposed to get that illness. Imagine not having to have your child endure an illness you had suffered with. That would be the best gift you could give a child a life free from diseases. Scientists are already able to do this with curtain illness; like once that are only predominant in a curtain sex. They can implant the mother with eggs of the opposite sex. So that they wont have a child with the illness. Scientists are also working on making it possible to transplant animal organs to humans. This would do away with our waiting list. People die in our country every day waiting for a donor to save their lives. This could possibly be a miracle discovery if they could develop a way to use all animal organs. The potential for good is amazing.
View point three: Are fertilized eggs people too?
There are moral issues with stem cell research. Some people believe that a baby starts at conception even though it hasn’t yet attached to the mother. So they believe that when the sperm inters the egg it is already a human. They object to growing the egg to retrieve stem cells from it. Even if the stems cells could potentially help others, they do not believe it is right. They believe it is killing a human being. They are also concerned that unethical scientist might go beyond a few days of development. They are concerned that scientists could develop a way to grow a child with out a host mother and then harvest it’s organs. This is a real extreme to the argument but you never know where technology and research could lead to. The majority of supporters for this argument are members of religious organizations.
View Point 4: Stem cell research could help everyone.
The opposite side to that argument is that the egg hasn’t attached to a womb and that they only grow it for 5 days. So it is still just a group of cells at this stage. Many eggs do not attach to the womb even after being implanted so there is no way of knowing how many of these research eggs would have actually survived. There are also thousands of couple who collected their eggs threw invitro fertilization. When a couple gets pregnant with the child they wanted many of them still have unwanted eggs in the freezer. So what happens to them? Many of them may just be thrown away. If a couple chooses to donate their eggs for research shouldn’t they be allowed? The stem cells could be used to help thousands of people. They could help spinal cord injury victims. It also has the potential to treat other diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. The greater good seems to far out way the bad in their opinion current life is more important than potential life. Doctors, nurses and the majority or the medical community feel this way.
I think that the government or President Bush should allow stem cell research. I feel very strongly about this. I believe that who ever is the next president will allow the research to continue. I think there are far too many benefits to not continue. The diseases that this could help are extremely debilitating to the person and their whole family. This research could improve their quality of life. It would also be a benefit to society. A lot of the people living with Alzheimer’s and other diseases are living in care homes paid for by our taxes. So if people could live on their own longer it would be a benefit financially to our government. Over all the people living are more important than a potential embryo that hasn’t even been put inside a woman. To have stem cell research denied because it is a potential human but abortions in the third trimester legal in our country is absolute hypocrisy, it’s absurd. Overall there are endless benefits to all kinds of genetic engineering. That hopefully one day will unlock many medical mysteries. Maybe by the time we are senior citizens we won’t have to worry about losing our minds to Alzheimer’s.
These pictures are of a fertilized egg (blastocyst) at 5 days and a baby at 16 weeks second trimester. I think if you look at these it would make you question why our president is vetoing a stem cell bill that is currently being passed in congress. Yet we still have legal abortions in most states upto 2o something weeks depending on the state. Our country needs to figure out what is really important.
Work Cited:
Madder, Sylvia S. “Human Biology” 10th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007.Blastocyst picture: http://advancedfertility.com/blastocystimages.htm This is at five days.
Fetus at 16 weeks second trimester: http://www.wprc.org/parenting/fetal-development/second-trimester/
Madder, Sylvia S. “Human Biology” 10th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007.Blastocyst picture: http://advancedfertility.com/blastocystimages.htm This is at five days.
Fetus at 16 weeks second trimester: http://www.wprc.org/parenting/fetal-development/second-trimester/
2 comments:
Nice Job! I think that you followed the guidlines and the information was relayed well. I like how you had the different viewpoints seperated and took a look at each one individually. The information was displayed in a manner that was easy to follow and easy to understand. Even though every reader might not agree with the opinion you stated at the end you made a strong case for why stem cell research should be allowed here in the United States. I can't really say what needs improvement for the next time because I think that you did an excellent job. I guess the only thing I could say is maybe add a few more graphics next time? Good job.. Jordan Baker
I thought that the two best points of your ethical issues essay was your multiple viewpoints and your very strong opinion. I felt that you were very informed and did a lot of research on this topic and I believe that you feel very strongly about this topic. I don't think that you could have improved on this essay because it was very well written. The One thing that surprised me and I did not know about was the fact that genetic engineering may be used to create a race of "super humans". I am so biased to the helpful point of view of this topic that I guess I never thought of genetic engineering being used for evil.
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