Genetic Engineering: Good or Bad?

Introduction With the dawn of modern genetic technology, new problems and possibilities arise. The ability to modify the genes of living organisms is a very controversial subject, spawning many debates about its uses, ethics, and dangers. On one hand, the possibility of modifying livestock and plants to produce more food and useful products is tempting. Medical uses for genetic modification are also abundant, and can change medicine for the better. On the other hand, problems about the ethicality of tampering with the natural world, legal rights on genetically altered organisms, and various possible negative effects on the environment bring up the question: Is it worth the risk to use this technology? Pros | Cons | Genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) are a new and developing technology with a vast capability to do good for society. Although the ethics issues that are presented with the introduction of this technology, they are not insurmountable. Additionally, the benefits far outweigh the possible risks. Although the most visible and controversial aspect of genetic modification is the proliferation of genetically modified food, GMO’s also have many other uses. For example, transgenic microbes are capable of producing a large of amount of human proteins such as insulin and clotting factors to help cure diseases. However, this argument would be incomplete if it did not address the most pressing issue of GMO’s: the production of genetically modified foods. The list of benefits that genetic engineering brings to agriculture is a long one. Some of those benefits include herbicide resistance, pest resistance, viral resistance, increased nutritional yield, and increased shelf life. All of these improvements not only benefit the first-world countries such as the U.S, but poorer countries as well. For example, Golden Rice, which is not yet ready for widespread planting, allows farmers to grow a variety of Oryza sativa (Asian rice) that can biosynthesize