Design-A-Baby?

What is a designer baby you may ask. Well, "designer babies" is the term being used by the media to describe the future of modifying or selecting our children's genes for desirable characteristics (medical and cosmetic). This significantly reduces the chances that a child will be born with a genetic disorder. In this process, they use reproductive techniques involving InVitro Fertilization or IVF to fertilise eggs with sperm in 'test tubes' outside the mother's body in a labratory. Legally, there are only two ways that designer babies can be created. One of these ways is by choosing the type of sperm that will fertilise the egg. The other is by screening embryos for a genetic disease, and then only putting back the selected embryos in the mother's womb.

To think, we have advanced so ahead in technology that we can choose the desirable characteristics that we want our babies to have! It sounds pretty cool, don't you think? But, it is just unethical. Sure, by screening embryos for a genetic disease we are able to prevent the future children of this world from having any sort of disease by replacing their faulty sections of DNA with healthy DNA. We can have the baby that we always dreamed of. Sounds like a dream come true.. or more like an unbelievable scene from a science fiction book. Who would have thought that we would come to this point in life? We've created all the objects that are in our life, and now we are creating the people in our life as well!?

Not only is designing our babies wrong in my opinion, it is also financially draining. Doing this is very expensive, and couples really should take into consideration their financial status. They also need to consider how their child will be affected by being a designer baby. There are many high risks when it comes to these genetic enhancement experiments. By doing this we are losing our social and ethical values. We are changing how God has planned us to be. Just think about it, in the near future we will be divided even more. There's already criticism on many people's parts about being "perfect." Now this will just grow even stronger and result in more division. We will have our "perfect" designer babies and then we will have those who were created without the use of genetic enhancements. Do we really want this? Do we want to lose the uniqueness of each and every one of our children? We should embrace everything that God has to give to our children and not try to change it.

Yet, some people will actually be for this. They want their children to have the best that they can have. This even includes removing the obesity gene, or any undesirable gene that will only bring them suffering in life. But think about it. Isn't life made worth while with all the suffering that we have to endure? Sure, we want the best for our child, and having the oppurtunity to give them the best is great. Yet, there are always cons with the pros. Soon, this will all just turn into a competition. A competition as to which person has the better looking baby. People may think twice about this, but hopefully they won't do it. Babies and science shouldn't mix. Sure, it can cure diseases which is what we all want. A cure, right? But is this really the way to go? Well, I don't know how this will turn out. It can go either way. We'll just see what the future has in store for us. To design a baby or to not design a baby, that is the question.

Sources:

http://www.bionetonline.org/English/content/db_cont1.htm

 http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/designerdebate/

Humans. Invasive Species, Or Stewards Of The World?

In my own personal point of view, I see us humans as both invasive species & stewards of the world. There are some situations in which we are just trying to make things better, but in the long run we end up making it worse. This happens unintentionally many times, such as in the following situation. In the 1990's, there were two national parks in Africa in which the elephant population greatly increased. People believed that the best way to deal with this situation would be by killing a selected number of them in order to reduce their numbers. Or else they would eat up all the vegetation, which would not only affect them, but other animals as well. A scientist was against this, & asked them not to do this, but they eventually came to a mutual agreement. That agreement was that one park would be left alone, not touched at all, & the second park was allowed to have its elephant population reduced. A few years later, they found out that the park that was left alone regenerated its vegetation at a natural pace, the elephant popuation was naturally reduced, & everything was back in balance. While the other park that had some of its elephants killed was in poor conditions. As you can see from this situation, what we thought was going to benefit this ecosystem, in reality ended up harming it & affecting it negatively. Sometimes our quest to take care of & protect the biodiversity of our ecosystems ends up taking a wrong turn somewhere on the path.

Yet, there are other situations in which we know that we are being invasive, but choose to continue anyways. One of the situations that falls under this category is when we cut down trees. We cut down forests more quickly than they can regenerate. As well, we are taking away animals' habitats when we cut trees down. Yet, we do so because we need places to build new buildings, or materials to make objects with. But by getting stuff for ourselves through the cutting of trees, we are snatching away what many animals have strived on. We are well aware of our actions, but we invade other species' territories to meet our own needs. We all have different opinions when it comes down to whether we're invasive or just tending to the ecosystem's needs, but to me I see us as both. We were created to be stewards of the world, but both intentionally & unintentionally we are being invasive species.

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Sources:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/11/1105_041105_elephants_2.html