Gattaca (Genetic Engineering) Opinion Piece
‘Consider God’s handiwork. Who can straighten what he hath made crooked’
-Ecclesiastes 1:14-15
Imagine being able to control the characteristics of your children, free from any genetic mutations and diseases. Imagine choosing their eye colour, hair colour, IQ, traits, sex. Through the discovery of new methods and the upgrades in technology in today’s world, scientists can choose different features and adjust them to the wants of parents and many people now believe that genetically engineering a baby should be legal. I believe however, that a baby should be produced naturally and should not be genetically engineered as this will cause many problems in its latter life.
Discoveries by scientists have found many diseases related to genes, and believe that genetic engineering is a way to decrease and eliminate the chances of inheriting these diseases by altering the embryo. This sounds great right? But how great is it really? Many believe that parents should be given the right to design their own child as their consider it to be a moral obligation so that their child grows up into a better adult. However, growing up in to a good person is not genetic. For example, if an alcoholic adopt their child into a stable and moral family, the child is more likely to grow up as a stable adult than alcoholic – such as the saying ‘children see, children do’ . Altering the embryo is not a moral obligation because it is not possible to change the moral of an unborn child.
Another negative aspect is the social suffrage of the child. Genetically engineered children may become an outcast in some ways and may feel rejected because of the thought that their parents did not accept them for who they were, hence changing them. How about the competition in having the ‘perfect’ child throughout parents? Individuality will likely to disappear if designer babies become the norm. Brothers and sisters will be different in all aspects of life. The greatest danger of G.E will be pride.
-Ecclesiastes 1:14-15
Imagine being able to control the characteristics of your children, free from any genetic mutations and diseases. Imagine choosing their eye colour, hair colour, IQ, traits, sex. Through the discovery of new methods and the upgrades in technology in today’s world, scientists can choose different features and adjust them to the wants of parents and many people now believe that genetically engineering a baby should be legal. I believe however, that a baby should be produced naturally and should not be genetically engineered as this will cause many problems in its latter life.
Discoveries by scientists have found many diseases related to genes, and believe that genetic engineering is a way to decrease and eliminate the chances of inheriting these diseases by altering the embryo. This sounds great right? But how great is it really? Many believe that parents should be given the right to design their own child as their consider it to be a moral obligation so that their child grows up into a better adult. However, growing up in to a good person is not genetic. For example, if an alcoholic adopt their child into a stable and moral family, the child is more likely to grow up as a stable adult than alcoholic – such as the saying ‘children see, children do’ . Altering the embryo is not a moral obligation because it is not possible to change the moral of an unborn child.
Another negative aspect is the social suffrage of the child. Genetically engineered children may become an outcast in some ways and may feel rejected because of the thought that their parents did not accept them for who they were, hence changing them. How about the competition in having the ‘perfect’ child throughout parents? Individuality will likely to disappear if designer babies become the norm. Brothers and sisters will be different in all aspects of life. The greatest danger of G.E will be pride.