Designer Babies
Essay 3
Genetic engineering is developing in such a rapid pace that many things cannot be adopted in my head. The world just has started to get accustomed to possibility of human cloning; modern technologies allowed scientists to discover new opportunities, such as “designer babies”. This term causes in my mind lively imagination of a couple, cautiously selecting every trait and feature from a catalogue for their future baby, such as gender, color of skin, eye and hair, height, beauty, talents. The entire idea is both exciting and frightening and definitely raises ethical issues. As a student of the School of Engineering, I thought about contributing to the development of genetic engineering, and in-class debate on the topic of Fukuyama’s work made me think about possible reaction of society regards designer babies in the future and whether these perfect kids will be superior to natural-born children; how would Darwinian “survival of the fittest” figure in this inequality and how it can be related with old-existing problem between two races, when one of them has more opportunities in life, as in King`s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. All of these issues have the same base related to social problem of human inequality. Therefore, these readings influenced me to think about social injustice in my country and make it possible for every citizen to have equal opportunities, such as qualitative medical services and education, despite their initial financial and social conditions.
It is worth starting from the observation that in these days parents try to "design" children from their childhood by sending them to different specialized schools, intended to develop various skills and remove defects. I am excited about whether genetic engineering should be used to create a “better” version of the child. Choosing the sex of the child is only the beginning of the process; parents in the future will have an access to selection of the other qualities of their future offspring
Genetic engineering is developing in such a rapid pace that many things cannot be adopted in my head. The world just has started to get accustomed to possibility of human cloning; modern technologies allowed scientists to discover new opportunities, such as “designer babies”. This term causes in my mind lively imagination of a couple, cautiously selecting every trait and feature from a catalogue for their future baby, such as gender, color of skin, eye and hair, height, beauty, talents. The entire idea is both exciting and frightening and definitely raises ethical issues. As a student of the School of Engineering, I thought about contributing to the development of genetic engineering, and in-class debate on the topic of Fukuyama’s work made me think about possible reaction of society regards designer babies in the future and whether these perfect kids will be superior to natural-born children; how would Darwinian “survival of the fittest” figure in this inequality and how it can be related with old-existing problem between two races, when one of them has more opportunities in life, as in King`s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. All of these issues have the same base related to social problem of human inequality. Therefore, these readings influenced me to think about social injustice in my country and make it possible for every citizen to have equal opportunities, such as qualitative medical services and education, despite their initial financial and social conditions.
It is worth starting from the observation that in these days parents try to "design" children from their childhood by sending them to different specialized schools, intended to develop various skills and remove defects. I am excited about whether genetic engineering should be used to create a “better” version of the child. Choosing the sex of the child is only the beginning of the process; parents in the future will have an access to selection of the other qualities of their future offspring