Siblings In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Brave New World, a science fiction novel written by Aldous Huxley in 1932 envisioned a future where all human beings were created in a lab; their, genes were manipulated, and the undesirable characteristics were removed. The embryos were modified to achieve certain levels of intelligence, physical strength and beauty. Little did Huxley know that his imagination is now possibly becoming a reality. In the recent decades, the field of human genetic engineering has become one of the major areas in science and is now advancing more rapidly than ever before. The world’s first “test-tube baby”, Louise Brown, was born on July 25, 1978 in England. She was the first baby to be conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF) (Louise). This was just the
For example, My Sister’s Keeper, is one of the perfect examples of what saviour siblings in real life might go through. Anna’s parents only had her fabricated in a lab just to save her sister, Kate. When Anna was supposed to be a child, she never had the freedom. In the book, she writes, “My parents tried to make things normal, but that’s a relative term. The truth is, I was never really a kid…Nearly every time Kate’s hospitalized, I wind up there too,” (Picoult 10). Whether or not the parents of a saviour sibling had other intentions, the newborn baby’s first reason to be born into the world is to sacrifice and save the ill sibling. Anna’s actions were extreme; however, it is certainly worth the careful consideration of what may arise in the world. As a minor, most of the choices are made by parents. Being forced to be a donor without even realizing what it means strips away the savior child’s autonomy. When a child is old enough to realize what is being done to him, he is able to deny organ donations. However, in most cases, even when the person no longer wishes to be a donor, he continues to do so out of guilt (Carmo). These internal battles that the savior siblings have to fight can result in serious psychological
The majority of parents claim to select gender solely for the reason of sex linked illnesses. Although this might be true in some countries, others are abusing this knowledge to select gender for non-medical reasons. For instance, in countries such as China, where men carry the ancestral line, the families prefer boys instead of girls. Girl fetuses are often aborted after finding out the sex through an ultra sound. Yet, with the newer technology of IVF and PGD, it permits an easier way of gender selection. After PGD, the desired gender embryo is implanted in the woman’s uterus (Gender). However, by not even giving female embryos a chance, it is promoting sex discrimination and cultivating a gender imbalanced society. In China, there are approximately 62 million “missing” women and girls due to sex selective procedures (Hvistendahl). As the population of the female decreases the male population skyrockets. This all results in kidnapping and female trafficking, who are later sold as brides to men (Gender). Dr. Nisker, a PGD pioneer, presumed that sex selection or PGD would be used mostly by infertile couples. He states, “Fifty-eight percent of the calls were from fertile couples. I never thought for one minute this would be used by fertile couples”. Unlike what he had thought, he found the facts to be shocking (Gonda). The practice of gender selection for nonmedical purposes is unethical