Thao's+Essay


 * TEXT OF ESSAY**

Every their baby to be healthy. Genetic engineering seems like a practical way to eliminate diseases that would cause pain and suffering, but once we begin to modify genes and DNA where do we draw the line?

Genetic engineering shouldn’t be used to create “designer” babies. That would take away the aspects that make each individual unique from another. Not everybody can be perfect. In fact, nobody is perfect. There are always going to be people who are bigger and better than someone else. We can’t all have the same traits and abilities. We just have to make the most of what we have. We all have our strengths and weaknesses that make us the person we are. Would genetic engineering take that away? There are so many possibilities and questions regarding this new technology. We want to embrace something that could potentially relieve the human race from suffering, yet we are afraid that it will create a too perfect human race and new prejudices based on the qualities of one’s genetic makeup rather than personality and the person as a whole.

I don’t really see a huge problem in the way life is now. We all live, we all die. Genetic engineering is not going to change that. To be cliché, it’s not the years in our lives but the life in our years. Those who suffer from diseases today can still live fulfilled lives even if they are going to die young. Experimentation with genetic engineering should be allowed to continue or else we will never know the benefits or problems with it. However, we also have to know when enough is enough and to be able to draw that fine line for ourselves, or we may begin to take those first steps down the slippery slope.

Many people are concerned with the privacy issues dealing with being able to decode our genome because it is the core of who we are. If someone could see our genetic makeup they could make judgments of us before even knowing what we look like. I think that’s bullshit. I don’t understand why people are worrying. What are we going to do with your genome if it is posted on the internet? Nobody has the intelligence to read it or decide what they think of you because of it. I’m not going to look at someone’s genome and make judgments on them. I wouldn’t even know what it meant if I looked at it! I think this notion is sort of ridiculous. There has never been true equality, no matter how hard we try to make it. People are always going to have prejudices and probably never going to change, it’s a part of human nature. Whether black or white, Asian or Hispanic, de-gene-rate or not, there’s never going to be true equality.

As for genetically modified foods, I’m not sure where I stand on that issue. There is potential for healthier, better tasting food, but at the same time what if something goes wrong? It could be a disaster leaving us with no other safe food. I’m not really particular where my food comes from, but I don’t want to be eating anything that could be potentially dangerous to my health.

Cloning is another scientific aspect that has raised many bioethics questions. I think that it is safe to clone animals and plants, at the moment. Therapeutic cloning seems like it would help a lot of disabled people a lot, as would stem cells. The central question that revolves around this issue is when life begins. Honestly, I don’t know. I’m not religious and do not have that background to influence my opinion. I see life when people are living it, but I don’t know when it starts. It should be fine to do testing with the embryonic cells that just sit in the freezer waiting to be burnt. We should put those to good use. Finding the cure to paralysis and impairing diseases would be amazing. So many people suffer from paralysis and degenerative diseases. Luckily I have never personally known anyone who has had that misfortune, but if I did I know I would want anything to make that person better. So as of right now, I’m for stem cell research.

All of these ideas are so complex and deep that it is hard for me to come up with an exact opinion. It can all help but it might also do harm. That’s where it is hard to decide whether it is good or bad. I am completely for research because if we stop it, we will never know the potential it could have had. We just have to know when enough is enough. But where do we draw the line?


 * Audio File**

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