The Pros And Cons Of Genetic Engineering

Conference of Medical Professional Associations. In this document, article 18 talks about how “Medical progress is based on research that cannot be undertaken without experiments carried out on human beings.” When we look at this statement, this is where the first problem arises.
When is it okay to experiment? In order to provide the best possible results, the manipulation must be done in utero while the embryo is in its developing stages. There is an ongoing debate as to whether embryos should be considered humans or not, and this is more of a factor when abortion is discussed. In the case of genetic manipulation however, such a manipulation would only be done in order to prevent a hereditary disease and this implies that there would
If an unborn child is found to have a genetic disease, then the parents would be given the option to either have their unborn child genetically manipulated in order to correct this issue or to just let the child grow up and develop with the genetic disorder. When looked at objectively, there are no parents who would allow their child to grow up with a disorder that could potentially be cured. When this becomes the mentality, we are left contemplating whether or not this is some type of discrimination through eugenics. We can learn from history about the effects of genetic discrimination. In 1883 Sir Francis Galton coined the word eugenics and defined it as "the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair… future generations either physically or mentally" (Fester, 1966, p. 591). Today, this word is defined by the Oxford dictionary as the science of improving a population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. This lead to a movement in 1904 that began essentially sterilizing people who were deemed ‘unfit’. The movement was in part affected by the fact that hereditary diseases were finally understood and since attempts to cure them were considered futile, measures to prevent reproduction by the ‘unfit’ appeared to be the only way to eliminate these conditions. An impatient eugenic was Dr. Harry C.
The co-chair of that committee stated that, “Human genome editing holds tremendous promise for understanding, treating, or preventing many devastating genetic diseases, and for improving treatment of many other illnesses. However, genome editing to enhance traits or abilities beyond ordinary health raises concerns about whether the benefits can outweigh the risks, and about fairness if available only to some people” (Javelosa, 2017). In response, the NAS released a statement saying that future genetic modification testing will be allowed only under stringent oversight (National,