GATTACA AND GENETIC ENGINEERING

Gattaca and genetic engineering



Gattaca and genetic engineering

If we were able to genetically engineer human beings to "perfection," would it be ethically correct?

Genetic engineering may have some dazzling effects in society today such as finding new cures for diseases and such, but genetic engineering also has a bad side to it. Firstly, with the power of genetic engineering in the hands of a parent, they will be able to decide on whether they would prefer the child to be a male or a female. This might sound good to most parents, but it is dangerous to take more and more control of our lives and leave natural births behind. Another useless side to genetic engineering is that the process and the know-how may fall into the wrong hands: therefore, they would be able to do anything with such information, like creating a super-human being. Scientist argue the right of having germ line engineering (genetically engineering the genes in eggs, sperms or embryo's) used in society. They argue that it will be able to be used so parents will be able to avoid passing on genetic diseases on to their child. Though this may be true, it is also untrue. Researchers and scientists are actually fact betraying the trust that society grants them i.e. they wouldn't have to use germ line engineering to make sure an unborn embryo doesn't receive the disease, they just use germ line engineering as an excuse to enhance the parents child/children with genes they wouldn't be able to get from the parents (Birx, 2001).

The only valid thing about genetic engineering is that is has the potential for preventing diseases and suffering. This is done by changing certain genes in the human body for e.g. if a person has lung disease; and a defective gene in the lung cells causes this, then those genes might be able to be changed; and therefore the disease cured.

Scientists do this by putting healthy human genes into virus-like organisms that injected into the patient's bloodstream and travel to the lungs. After this done, the virus-like organisms insert the healthy genes into the lung cells containing the defective genes. This type of genetic engineering deemed acceptable in society, because it changes other genes besides the sperm and egg cells, it won't affect or completely change the imperfections in a person. The other type of genetic engineering, which involves changes in the genes in eggs or sperms, or very early embryo's is highly consequential, as it has the power to change society as reconfiguration of human beings would be available, therefore this type of genetic engineering is unacceptable. Scientific breakthroughs in genetic engineering could not only have harmful physical effects on future generations but also sociological effects. Elimination of “defective” traits decreases a human being's ability to adapt to a changing environment.

Tests on animals show that this aspect of genetic engineering is unpredictable. There is a significant risk that we may produce physical changes or alterations of the personality of the ...