Against_Genetic_Enhancement

Introduction: There are several downsides to genetic enhancement that clearly take precedent over the so-called benefits that genetic enhancement seems to have. We should, as human beings be observant of the fact that human life is a precious resource and that we should not put the lives of the innocent in harm’s way. Some forms of genetic enhancement have been known to actually put people in an increased risk of harm or even death. An example of this is seen through the newly-made germline therapy. In this procedure, scientists have tried to eliminate genetic diseases such as sickle-cell anemia through altering the genetic structures of the infected persons. However, if the scientists make even one mistake, then the person could be put at risk for having an even worse disease or they may even be susceptible to death. It is also important to understand that genetic enhancement provides a violation to the natural human rights through taking away certain natural-born choices. While genetic enhancement could be seen as being good from the liberalist point of view, the more conservative point of view must also be considered in order for there to be a fair judgement. Genetic enhancement can be seen as being a way for people to “play God” and change things that were not generally meant to be changed. There is a clear line between common medical procedures and the procedures entailed by these relativity new forms of genetic enhancement in the human perspective. In common medical operations there is generally a large insurance of success. However, in genetic enhancement there is not enough evidence of potential success to give anybody a sense of insurance. Why should people spend thousands and thousands of dollars to take a chance to change something that might fail in the long run' It is like playing the lottery, there are a lot of losers and very few winners. Since it is not fully developed there is a far less chance of success than with common medical practices such as colonoscopies. People should also understand that some of these genetic changes that may be beneficial may actually harm the person in some kind of unknown way. Genetic enhancement is relatively new and not a lot of clear results have been formed through the experimentation done in the past. Whenever a new technology comes out it is important for people to spend a large amount of time testing the product and perfecting the product before marketing it to the public. The same applies for genetic enhancement. If a person wants to take a risk and expose themselves to the sometimes dire consequences of choosing to change something about themselves or even their children then genetic enhancement is clearly the correct choice for people to choose. However, if a person wants to be sure that their future is secure, then they should not choose to change anything so that any unwanted consequences would not become a problem in the future. Body Part 1 There are things that clearly stand against genetic enhancement. The pro side is not taking into effect the fact that these enhancements could actually cause even greater problems than the ones that they were supposedly trying to cure. In addition to that, it is important to understand that science is wasting the resources and funds that could be used to improve the current medical procedures. Instead of trying to improve the important medical procedures that are at this very moment affecting many people throughout the world, these scientists are supporting these new experimental enhancements that are really not even necessary. While it may be good if people could live longer it is not a requirement on the near horizon. Everyone will die at one point or another and there is nothing that can stop the inevitable. We are not saying that it would not be nice if sometime in the future that people were able to live longer and healthier lives. We are saying that we as human beings should be focused on helping the people that are suffering from fully preventable sicknesses and diseases instead of spending valuable time where it will really count. Also if people are to be able to be live longer lives then we would have a lot of economic problems that may occur if the current failed economical practices are not changed. What would happen if there was suddenly an increase in the amount of unemployed older people in the United States' Who would be supporting these people with no form of financial income' Sure social security and retirement funds may help, but at what cost is this to the common American people' We as college students do not have many funds to begin with and whatever funds we receive we have to put back into our tuition. However if genetic enhancement succeeds in rapidly changing the lifespan of the already old people then we, would have to pay for all of these so called “successes” of science. There are a lot of other issues that could be solved if we were able to stop pursuing these genetic enhancements that keep drawing funds and resources away from needed areas, then we could ensure that people would be able to live better lives and be happier about the decisions that we make. A modern example of a failed genetic technology that is supposed to improve human life is seen through the usage of Rapamycin. This compound was found to improve the overall health and lifespan of lab mice. The scientists that tested this compound on the mice thought that if it helped the mice exponentially then it would obviously help humans. However, those scientists were sadly mistaken. When they administered Rapamycin to human subjects they experienced several deadly side-effects including a large-scale suppression of the immune system of all of the humans tested. This made the test subjects more susceptible to many different types of diseases and ailments that would have been prevented if they had not been given this experimental genetic enhancement drug. In addition to the controversy arising from the expansion of human life, it is important to understand another controversy arising from genetic enhancement, that being designer babies and the ethical debates stemming from certain new and emerging technologies. Designer babies are best described as being a parent’s way to try and make their children exactly like they want them without any problems whatsoever, in essence, a perfect child. This technology is actually available to the people with the right amount of money. This concept of designer babies creates a lot of controversy. It basically makes humans creators of life which has been seen by some people as a means to “play God” in a sense. There is also a reduction of freedom that is experienced through the formation of these designer babies. There is currently an experimentation known as the Genetic Virtue Project which is trying to make it so that, genetically, parents could affect the mental and emotional mindset of their future children. This would highly limit the freedoms that the child would have because their parents are trying to make their children into the perfect person in an obviously flawed world. Genetic enhancement should not invade the sovereignty of any of its participants or try and change the personality of the persons involved. In the Genetic Virtue Project they are trying to make embryo’s be more ethically pleasing, meaning that they are trying to change certain personality traits of the embryo’s that would point them towards being better people in the future. They should not be changing things that don’t need to be changed about a person. It is important to let the future children make their own decisions about who they want to be in the future. It helps for the children to establish identity and accumulate self-worth. Building a child’s self-esteem is highly important especially in the earlier years of life. If a person is not able to develop a high self-esteem in the younger stages of life then later in life they may be susceptible to committing suicide or doing something equally irrational. The media is another aspect of society that has to do with the encouragement of these terrible genetic enhancements. In the current day and age people are using media to shape their personal identities and help them understand who they are in relation to the rest of society. If you searched genetic engineering on Google you would actually find a great number of articles supporting genetic enhancement. The media seems to be encouraging people to support genetic enhancement without taking into effect the con side of genetic enhancement. We as humans should not always believe that we are getting the full truth from just the media. We must be willing to actually find out what the truth is and how it affects us. The media was created for the sole reason of corporate greed. Companies spend billions and billions of dollars each year making sure that we as humans hear about their revolutionary product or procedure that they offer. Sometimes companies may lie about some of the downsides that may occur from using their products and they may only mention the positive things about their products. Genetic engineering works the same way. Genetic engineering is primarily focused on getting upper class, rich people to try and invest in their completely experimental procedures that may or may not work at all in the way that it was intended. Rebuttal It is important to understand that genetic enhancement takes away most of the focus towards actually trying to cure diseases and instead focuses on trying to solve problems that should not be solved at this time. There should not be continued research because it takes away funding and numbers away from actually trying to cure the preventable diseases that occur each day. Genetic enhancement is clearly taking away most of the time that could be used to actually make a difference in the world. Another key point is that the Church would highly frown upon the practice of genetic enhancement. There is clear evidence throughout Christian history which would say that people should not be getting involved in things that were only meant for God to do in the first place. Only God has the power to create life and everything that is born was created for a specific purpose. Humans should not change any part of the genetic well-being of each other since genetic engineering is actually something that only God should be able to do. God created each of us for a specific purpose and altering the genetic structure of the body would be going against that specific purpose that God ordained for us. We as the con side are clearly against the injustices of a parent trying to predestine the fate of their children through trying to create certain important features that the child should try for themselves. The children should have the right to choose who they want to be and they should be able to make sure that nothing would possibly get in the way of them making their own independent decisions. Only God should have the ability to predestine others and it is clear that the concept of designer babies violates this basic principle. In response to the stewards of God statement made by the Pro side; we as humans should take into account that not everything in the Bible was meant to be taken literally. In fact, most of the ideals and principles endorsed within the Bible are meant to be applied and adapted to our daily lives as Christians. We are not supposed to, as the Pharisees of old, make the mistake in taking the Bible too literally or we will be surly condemned as the old leaders of the church. The victimization of the children so highly advocated by the Pro side is not even an issue of sizable importance. There has been oppression within children since the beginning of time. Parents have forced rules and regulations upon their children in order to help discipline them and to help them become good virtuous kids in the future. Children have been victimized since the beginning of time and pressure on the children has existed since Cain and Abel. The Pro side advocates that with genetic enhancement that they would be able to eliminate all forms of peer pressure and that everything would be all fine and dandy; seeing that the children will have nothing at all to worry about at all. In reality, it is important to take into account the fact that there is no way to completely eliminate anything. Even if, through genetic enhancement people were able to completely eliminate any kind of genetic diseases there would still be the problem of heredity. Completely healthy children could be made fun of for being short just because they inherited the genes from their parents to be short. Genetic enhancement could never even come close to stop people from being bullied. There will always be people who want to be the Alphamale in any kind of situation and they may even result in bullying to get their way. In order to completely eliminate bullying, psychological changes must occur within the mind of the potential bully. It would not be ethical to genetically enhance people as to where they are forced to think of a certain way or do specific pre-planned actions. Would we really have freedom if genetic enhancement were to change the way people thought and acted' Therefore it is proven that genetic enhancement cannot remove victimization of children in society. Final Blow: We as Christians should not support the atrocious works advocated by genetic enhancement. It is clear from the argument presented by the Con side that there is not any need to focus on creating new technologies when we should just try and improve the current medical practices. We as human beings should try and cure all of the preventable diseases instead of using a large amount of funds and resources to try and find some kind of universal temperamental short-term solution. There are not enough verified facts and figures that can even be used to try and even touch on a potential problem of the common day medical problems. The consequences of genetic enhancement far outweigh the benefits. Almost every kind of genetic enhancement is still really new and the majority of the improvements are still in the research and developmental stage. There have not been that many successes in the field of genetic enhancement in humans. As a new field, genetic enhancement will take a long time to even develop into anything useful whatsoever. If this genetic enhancement were to occur it may cause for people to live longer. This could cause for an extreme economic downturn if there was an increased number of elderly people in the world. Why is it that we as Christians are even trying to use genetic enhancement to help extend the lifespan of the already old people' If we are truly saved with the body and blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ then we as Christians should know that if you truly are a believer that death will not be the final destination. There is life after death for those of us who believe in the forgiveness that comes from having a relationship with Christ. Would you rather live a longer life on the dismal, sin-infested earth, or live for eternity in the supernatural perfect place known as heaven' In addition to some of the ecclesial implications made in the Con argument it is also important to understand that genetic enhancement should not be used to be the identity of its participants. What we mean is that genetic enhancement should not try and change any kind of emotional or psychological aspects of any of its participants, including children. Parents should not try and make all of the choices for their children. There will be no sense of satisfaction that comes from someone else making all of the decisions for you. You should have the right to choose what kind of person that you want to be and it is not up to society to determine who you should be. Designer babies take away some freedom from the child. This experimental procedure, which is not even fully developed, takes away the autonomy from the child. Children should try and create their own identity so that certain psychological and emotional problems could be avoided in the future. We should not allow for the media to shape who we are and what we believe as humans. The media lies to us constantly all because of corporate greed and it is important to understand that the media does not have any genuine care about the wellbeing of their constituents whatsoever. The media may also try to leave out important information that is not necessarily positive, and they may just try to advocate only the positive aspect of their products. Genetic enhancement is very similar to the media in that it only tells us about the positive effects that it has and neglects to tell us about the negative effects. Baker, Beth. "Prolonging Life." CQ Researcher 30 Sept. 2011: 805-28. Web. 2 May 2012. Blackford, Russell. “Genetically Engineered People.” Politics and the Life Sciences March 2010 : Vol. 29, Issue 1 (Mar 2010), pg(s) 82-84.Web. 30 April 2012. http://www.bioone.org/doi/pdf/10.2990/29_1_82 Holub, Grzegorz. "Creating Better People': Some Considerations On Genetic Enhancement." National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.4 (2010): 723-740. Academic Search Complete. Web. 29 April 2012. Research Institute, . "Statement on Human Species Altering Technology." erlc.com. erlc.com, 2006. Web. 25, April, 2012. http://erlc.com/article/statement-on-human-species-altering-technologies/ Walker, Mark. “Enhancing Genetic Virtue.” Politics and the Life Sciences September 2009 : Vol. 28, Issue 2 (Sep 2009), pg(s) 27-47. Web. 30 April 2012. http://www.bioone.org/doi/pdf/10.2990/28_2_27