Peter's+Essay


 * TEXT OF ESSAY**

For millions of years, science has always been the practice of life. Whether it's the understanding in humans, plants or animals, it has always been around and will continue to do so. Science has introduced us to new phenomenons in the way it should have such as saving lives. There are neccesities for the human immune system such as vaccinations to help save us from diseases and disorders that are easily catchable, diseases that can be preventable such as small pox, rubella, Lyme disease, rabies and polio. As we take a closer look into a microscope, we see that there are new ways of preventing those types of diseases as in genetic engineering, stem cell research and cloning. The question is whether it is right or wrong.

As simply put, human genetic engineering has its counterbalance; it can help treat diseases but at the same time, we ask ourselves a question-are we playing god? Are we messing with god's gift? Humans have been given a free gift-the gift of life. Is it true for what he has in stores for us, must it be okay to change it or simply let life go on and live with what we have? The question only truly rises when it becomes more important to a certain extent when people start telling their doctors what they want their child to look like and live with such as the color of their eyes, color of their hair and to erase any genetic disorder or disease that runs in the family.

These days, it is quite obvious that parents have babies who have the possbility of being born with a disorder. If we had the actual means of being able to genetically engineer that and choose if our babies can get rid of that disorder, would it be a good thing? People would start using it towards their advantage and begin telling scientist "I want my kid to have blue eyes, brown hair, a strong physique body, very athleitc and no acne." Hmm, i wonder if that is the right thing to do. In my opinion, genetic engineering is okay to an extent concerning embryos. The sole purpose for it is just to eliminate disorders that a child can have such as Autism, Down-Syndrome or Leukemia. As my classmates have argued their sides, I came to an agreement that every parent wants their child to be healthy. That is their number one priority and concern. If I was a soon-to-be parent, that would be the only thing on my mind. To have a healthy kid, it would be great but if your kid is born with a disease or disorder, it would not be the greatest thing in the world but it would not kill me. I would simply still love my child no matter what. If my wife had a kid and it turned out to have Down-Syndrome or something, I would not keep questioning God on why he did this to me. I would make the best out of the situation and continually to love him/her like no other. If I had the option to cure and get rid of my child's disorder, would I? Of course I would. The reason behind my explanation is that I want to focus on my family which is my number 1 priority. I want to take care of them and hope for my kids to live a healthy and happy life. That is what any other parent would choose and I would not see a disagreement towards that response. I would choose the option to cure my child's disorder because not only would it benefit the lives of my wife and I but also for my kids. I also agree with the other side of this argument which is no. It would be a no for me because of the fact that we are playing the role of god. We were created by god, the way he wanted us to be created. Therefore, if he chose for some of us to have Autism or Diabetes, we can not escape it. We simply live through it. The tough times it gives us, we fight through it and make the best out of the dreadful situtation. Life goes on. However, we are disobeying god's gift if we chose how we want our kids to look or act like and to have good genes. Like stated earlier and will say it once again, whatever your child has, that's life and you learn to deal with it. You should be happy with what you got and make the best out of it.

Ah yes, on to one of my favorite things in this world-my love for food! There isn't a problem when it comes to food but when its genetically modified, questions and concerns will soon arise. To be brief, the definition of GMOs is an organism whose genes have been altered by using techniques of genetic engineering. The process of GMOs goes as follows. DNA molecules from different sources are combined into one molecule to create a new set of genes. The new DNA will then be transfered into an organism giving it the new genes needed. Is there a problem involving GMOs? Of course, there is. The benefits of GMOs in altering crops would be for the enhanced taste and quality, increased nutrients, improving resistance to diseases, pests or herbicides along with new products and growing techniques being presented. In animals, there is increased resistance, productivity, feed efficiency, better yields of meat, eggs and milk along with improved animal health. All in all, the society becomes better for the people to survive because of the increased food security needed for growing populations. Safety is the most important thing for people in order to survive. On the negative side of GMOs, there can be potential human health impacts and unknown effects on the body and other organisms. Involving another side of this controversy would be the ethics and the morals to it on whether it is right to genetically modify organisms. People believe that by genetically modifing organisms it would be a violation of their values and that it would be tampering with nature by mixing genes among different species. My opinion of it all is that GMOs are fine to eat. Half the people don't even know that the majority of what they eat on a daily basis is most likely genetically modified and they still end up being fine. Even if they knew about GMOs, I doubt it would have stopped them from eating more. It has a positive aspect in it, in that there is an increased amount of food producitivity and we wouldn't run out of all the vegetables, fruits and meats necessary to help us live. However, when genetically modifing food is presented, scientist must test it out to make sure its 100% safe for humans to eat it. Although GMOs can sometimes seem like a bad thing because of the fact that people may not understand what it is but as stated before, majority of the people around the world eat genetically modified foods all the time without even noticing and it hasn't really killed anyone for all these years that it has existed. Since there is no harm in it all, it seems okay to produce them and eat it in order to help humans with having increased food productivity.

The process of cloning is a vital topic to discuss and must make sure whether it can help us or hurt us. When trying to clone a human or an animal, we are obivously stepping in god's shoes and taking charge. I agree cloning is wrong and its always wrong untill to a certain extent. Even though we are playing god, we would be able to save lives. We could clone organs such as hearts, kidneys, etc. People that need the organs won't have to wait much longer and possibly die of waiting because we will have enough and more to offer to help those in need. If we could be sure cloning would help those that have heart, liver, kidney disease or other diseases then that's a wonderful thing. If you want to take it to the extreme, cloning could be used to make vast armies and leaders will want to build on that. It could be a dangerous thing where cloning can keep leaders alive and more things arise such as wars but lets get back to alittle less extreme. Touching on a similiar side of cloning of animals, it also has its up and downs. One of the major drawbacks in animal cloning is the uncertanity of the genetic outcome. By cloning dogs or cows, it does not always guarantee the offspring will have the bests traits of either parent. Since the cost of cloning is quite expensive, it wouldn't be useful when many of the cloned animals are born with major defects occuring from the process itself and we would simply be just wasting our money. Another reason on whether we should clone or not would be the testing process. The safety tests of cloned animals as food sources has not been established and theses changes could be dangerous to human beings due to the fact that we would be the only ones consuming the meat, eggs or milk of animals involved in the cloning process.

Controversy surrounds yet another important topic in all of genetics which would be stem cells. To have the ability and option to take action of therapeutic stem cell research could be beneficial. By having the means to actually get rid of the disease, it can be a great thing for a woman whose paralyzed or the man who has parkinson's disease to live a happier life. Taking a cell from an organ or another part of your body so that it can succesfully be used to cure illnesses or used in transplants is extremely helpful because it would save many lives of people who have been affected. If a person who is paralyzed decided to do therapeutic cloning, they would simply have the scientist to take cells from their nose or another area and insert them in their spine to help them walk again and heal themselves which would be helping them not hurting them. Also, it would not be like they are hurting other people because they are basically just helping themselves with no other lives being affected in the process.

With that all being said and done, we ask ourselves again whether the whole process of genetic engineering is right. By designer babies, it will only occur to an extent of eliminating any traces of diseases or disorders that the child carries. With GMOs, it can help increase food security and have doubles, if not triples, amount of food productivity. Cloning hearts or kidneys can help save many lives and the amount of organ donors would not be missing for this process. Last but not least, stem cell research can help a paralyzed patient get back on their feet by reviving new cells in their spine and help get rid of other diseases. With new advances in medical technology, it can help solve unanswered questions and bring the topic to reality in order to help scientist gain better findings for the future.