Genetic Engineering

For many it is difficult to embrace the vastness of possibility that the future poses. History tells us that everything that has to do with serious change always takes time, and i believe that for genetic engineering it is no different. While many effects of the process are engaging and beneficial to the quality of the life of many, it still raises moral questions, one of them being "Does man have the right to play 'God?'". The entirety of humanity has evolved beyond recognition from its beginning, and in many ways the transition from natural to medically enhanced conception could also be looked at as such. For many, science is now the answer to a child they never thought they would be able to have. For others, science disregards many of mankind's deepest and oldest relgious standards, as well as leaves the door wide open for people who will abuse such a privelage that was discovered on the principals of good-will. While there are dangers of misuse involved, parents should be allowed to alter specific genetic disfucntions of their children if it improves the overall quality of their lives and the child's lives.

As we see in A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley there are some great things that can come from manufacturing a person, one of them being stability. The people of the State are all healthy and able as far as their physical state is concerned. While some are adjusted differently than others, stability is created through the sense of balance between all of the different castes. The book shows, in a sense, how difference is necessary. A monopoly of any certain type of person, feature, or physical trait causes for that specific trait to be either favored or discriminated against. While they are also manufactured mentally, without the equality of different physical traits there would be a "superior" caste in the sense of health. Even though The Alphas are considered "superior" the lowers castes are still happy as they are AND just as healthy, they are jsut altered to create balance in the State.

For our world, genetic altering is extremely beneficial when in the hands of the right people. For instance, all people who truly want to have a child would have that ability even if their bodies were not fit to carry one. Places like foster homes and orphanages would ultimately be a thing of the past. This would be great because places like those tend to make the unadopted child feel unwanted or ignored. A childhood of people who you don't know interviewing you to find out if you fir their criteria would be traumatizing for anyone. Genetic altering would cause for less unwatned pregnancies OR give the ability to pass on that fertilized egg to someone else who wants a child.

When looking at it from a medical standpoint geentic altering would alter the world indefinitely. Genetic diseases and conditions could be wiped out. A woman with HIV/AIDS or any other STD wouldn't have to worry about passing on her condition to an innocent child. Alcoholism is also said to genetic in the sense that a child of an alcoholic will have a harder time resisting the urge. With genetic altering the child would begin their world without facing an immediate danger and risk of alcoholism that they couldn't help. Also birth defects such as down syndrome, autism, and cerebral palsy would be able to be extracted from the DNA of the child. This way they would have the chance to lead a normal and healthy life instead of a life with confusion and/or pain. An opposing side may argue that this is "God's way" or "the way that it was supposed to be." I feel that if most parents had the opportunity to ensure their child the best life possible and rid them of a potentially shortened or painful life that they would do so. In essence, genetic engineering, when practiced in these ways, would one day become as normal as a flu vaccination or taking Excedrine for a headache. It is another way that technology has found that allows for someone to lead a more comfortable and healthy life.

That being said, as Nancy Gibbs says in her article on genetic engineering, there is enormous potential in this "$4 billion dollar business" for it to get into the wrong hands and be practiced in an unmoralistic way. Gibbs speaks of the difficulty in protecting the rights of Americans of their freedom of choice but still maintaining restriction. There's definitely a line between saving an innocent child from a painful life and allowing a parent to choose if they want their child to be "screened for blond, for smart, for straight, or gay." In that sense people would be treating their children as accessories rather than people. Already there is examples in Hollywood of young celebrities being over-exposed by parents and loved ones to either make money off or state their own claim to fame. If that's the case now without these possibilities, what would stop a parent from putting stronger vocal chords in a child so as to raise them a a singer? Or to build up their muscle capacity so that they are able to be better altheletes, or make them smarter so they can raise them to be doctors? What this type of genetic altering does is takes away the child's opportunity to have their own choices for the outcome in their life in the same ways that being born with down syndrome would. Either genetic altering can inhibit a life's potential, or expand a life's potential. By designing a child to a parent's wants they are restricting them in the same ways in which this process was originally designed to erase.

As a world super power it is our unspoken job to set an example. If the country with the most freedom in the world can practice this means of science with respect to the process and the child involved, the world will follow suit. We CAN NOT let this type of breakthrough do anything but enrich lives instead of restrict them to the wants of soemone who is not them. The restrictions are necessary. Without them, the effects will be devastating and felt world-wide. With them, the world will see less death, more prosperous lives being developed, and a brighter future for someone who may not have been given that chance otherwise.