Katie+S's+Essay

=Genetics and Cloning=

If someone had the power to shout at a person to move out of the way so a car does not hit them, is it wrong that that person just sits there quietly and watch it happen? The Roman Catholic Church views suffering a necessary part of life. I however, feel that letting someone get hit by a car in hopes that it will lead them to find out more about themselves (note sarcasm) is something that is entirely ignorant. Vaccinations, surgeries, even dental work, are examples of things that humans have been created to combat pain and disease. Yelling at someone to move is the way we should view that removal of genetic diseases. If we cannot give a person a fair start to life, what as humans can we give them?

Since the dawn of times humans have aimed to make their lives easier and scientific technology, as a means to achieve that goal is no exception. We are on the threshold of a new epoch of life-changing scientific possibilities. It has been argued that humans are ‘playing god’ by working towards such ideas as genetic engineering. However if this is accurate, then with every new scientific creation that has used reason to help our species for as far back as history will tell, we then were also playing god. These life altering break throughs of science have the potential to eradicate fatal genetic disease s and tremendous amounts of unnecessary suffering. The reasons behind their opposition differ, but the overall fear is that humanity will begin the decent down the ‘ slippery slope ’ of ethics.

There is no difference between genetic engineering for common diseases today, and vaccinations within the past hundred years except that people did not seem to have such strong disagreement when scientists worked towards creating vaccinations that eradicated certain disease from first world countries and the world. In the 1796 Edward Jenner was successful in creating vaccinations that made smallpox, once a childhood killer, a disease eventually eradicated from Earth. Using the technology of genetic engineering to prevent horrible genetic deformations such as Down Syndrome and Hemacromatosis will achieve the same result today that vaccinations did a. For example, in the middle of this decade genetic tests were available for approximately 1500 diseases. Genetic tests help health care providers recognize patients who have genetic inclination to common diseases and create preventative and management plans.

The idea of having a fully sequenced genome that reveals what diseases/abnormalities people are susceptible to is potentially more private than ones social security number. It has the magnitude to make people extremely vulnerable This frightens some people that worry since insurance companies can now deny coverage to someone who has an ‘unstable’ medical history, what if in the era of genetic engineering they will be able to deny based on what a person has a predisposition? The fear of predisposition in relation to healthcare is a worry, but also the idea of that faced in Gattaca, where people are no longer looked at for their personality and character traits, but rather what they DNA presets for them to do well at. While the movie is a bit over dystopian, it presents a logical problem that could arise. Would the slippery slope faced in genetics allow there to be a sliding scale for humanity? The movie’s theme seems to answer that question: ‘//there is no gene for the human spirit’//. There are laws already in motion in a multitude of states that protect people’s genetic information from being released. No one would try, or be able to erase those laws from existence. When the capability of genetic science grows, so will the laws protecting peoples privacy, as shown countless times through our country’s history.

It is a valid worry to be frightened that likelihood for genetic abnormalities would prevent one from being able to obtain health insurance, but a major positive for genome sequencing is constantly overlooked. The process of discovering what people are susceptible to, also present the opportunity to customize genetic medicine to each individual for each individual symptom they may have. Doctors would be able to look at a patient’s genome, viewing the different genes, and make the most personalized plan of action possible on any level. Today, doctors must play a guess and check game with patients, prescribing various different medications aimed to alleviate different symptoms and illnesses, the majority that don’t work. Even though every human being is similar on a molecular level, the single nucleotide polymorphisms that occur create different gene expressions and thus different reactions. What might take person A two different medications to cure, it will take person B four or five until they are covered. This system of guessing and hypothesizing is potentially unsafe for the patient who has to try several different medications, and also a costly method both for the patient and issuance companies who have to pay for the pricey medications.

One of the acknowledgeable possibilities of genetic engineering is the loss of equality in the human species. The possibility of parents someday being able to go further than removing damaging traits to actually being able to transplant favorable genes that would lay the path to definite success is a scary and reasonable possibility. The technology used for identifying and removing genetic disabilities in embryos, is a double-edged sword that can also be used for creating ‘designer babies’. While this might seem like a form of Barbie dystopianism, something that I discovered while searching ‘designer babies’ is that a form of it already exists today. In a TIME article dated January 11th 1999, parents were able to predetermine their baby’s sex with “great accuracy”. There is already something genetic prescreening, and in 1999 it happened in fertility clinics. Genetic prescreening was actually possible after 1978 when the first in vitro fertilization process took place (IVF). The article I found on prescreening basically said that a fertilized embryo can be screened for genetic disorders, and the eggs, which contain the traits, can be disposed of for those that do not contain them. Since the eggs are fertilized, the chromosomes are already what they are going to be, parents can see which sex their baby will be (XX or XY)- is what I described above not genetic selection? If that article was written in 1999, now, eleven years later, and with the fully sequenced human genome, what now are parents able to choose or discard about their embryos? What laws stand in place to limit the parent’s decisions? Thankfully the TIME article offered a glimpse of optimism in the idea that long before scientists even begin working on designing babies, they will be driven to fully eradicate all possible genetic defects from the human embryos. Adding that the gene or arrangement of genes responsible for most of our physical and mental qualities haven’t even been recognized yet, making the idea of developing genes in or out of a fetus at least a little further away. The issue of gene therapy is one that is not answerable with yes or no. The idea of eradicating detrimental traits in embryos is one that can be viewed as another positive step of humans using reason to reduce suffering in the world.

Cloning, once left to science fiction, is something that thanks to Dolly, the cloned sheep, now presents itself a formidable opponent of possibility. The type of cloning varies from something that is used everyday to something that is banned by the United States Government. Gene Modified Organisms (GMO’s) are the key to agricultural success. Using genetic engineering for plants instead of humans, we have been able to make crops produce larger harvests, as well as resistant to frost, bugs and any other type of irritant that inhibits growth. I am the product of many decades of farmers in the Midwest. My family back until the 1700’s has been farmers. I see the advantages both economically and environmentally of having seeds that are resilient and produce large harvests. But no way should companies such as Monsanto be able to patent genes or have intellectual property rights that prevent other people from using them. That is simply a misuse of a system that was set up to keep inventors of things safe. Not something that someone found that is inside all humans, or organisms.

However, creating resilient crops seems to edge evolution along by creating plant producing pesticide resistant bugs. The possibilities that pesticide resistant bugs create are something among the likes of drug resistant bacteria’s: unimaginable and scary. As long as the foods produce no dangers to humans (like causing reactions) I see no problem with using them in food. Though I am myself an organic gardener, I know that there is no way America would be able to ever be completely organic. That is a too idealist and naïve goal to set. If America was educated in genetically modified organisms that were going to be in their food, and was able to view the safe ones as safe rather than be persuaded by a bias media, I could see labeling food that contains GMO’s as something not bad. GMO’s might be the long sought key for ending hunger in the third world. By introducing safe resilient crops to indigenous farmers in under developed countries we have the possibility to see results similar to that of when they were introduced to India; poverty be reduced in great numbers.

The majority of the public together with scientists shares the same view against reproductive cloning. They agree that the potential of cloning humans for simply organ donations for their original counterparts is too strong. However therapeutic cloning, a highly religious charged debate is something that offers less potential for destruction of human life, dependant on the view point.

Using stem cells taken from a fertilized embryo, I view, is not killing a life. But just as I view abortion (in common with the federal law) as not killing a human, the Roman Catholic Church and other fundamental groups do not agree. Taking stem cells from a week old blastocyst and using them to allow people like Christopher Reed to be able to walk again is not a crime or sin. Nor is it using one life to save another. In the first week, or even first month, the grouping of cells does not even have a heartbeat. Just as Lee Silver described while on the Colbert Show, a fertilized egg is simply potential life, since it will only grow if inserted inside a uterus. Embryonic stem cells are the best hope for curing diseases that humanity faces.

If humanity has the potential to save people from unnecessary suffering and pain, there is no reason why we should even hesitate on our decision. There are plenty of things in life that we will not be able to account for, such as car accidents and homicides. Just as we have used our reason and science to help our species develop in the past, using genetic engineering and stem cells is no different. We are simply the Edward Jenner’s of the twenty first century, who are working on eradicating genetic diseases, and curing those with them, on this Earth.