Modern society strives for awareness at every step, including giving birth to the best version of children. Around the world raises the number of experiments on reducing the percentage of sick children, as well as modifying genes for appearance and character. The issue causes many controversies since it affects the ethical point of view. On the one hand, oppositionists consider genetic engineering to interfere with the natural balance of the universe, which can lead to global negative consequences. In other words, some people are afraid to bring the situation to absurdity, when everyone can choose the traits. An alternative option is the global improvement of human qualities, which can lead to serious negative consequences. On the other hand, researchers in this field want to help couples that experience health problems or want to change some signs of a child to achieve the desired result. An obvious point is the ability to avoid hereditary diseases increasing the overall level of health. Genetic engineering gains positive effects because it allows the preservation and modification of inappropriate embryos, does not affect parental love’s general attitude, and is not risky.
Modifying genes allows one to get rid of hereditary diseases at the planning stage. At the moment, scientists have determined the genetic roots of many common diseases. The main ones are fatal, incurable diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease, and others (Kaczmarek et al. 1). As with any research, tests are carried out in a laboratory environment. It means that a woman voluntarily donates her material to conduct an experiment and select the best cells for the birth of healthy children without pathologies. Next, suitable cells are fertilized and placed back into the female body. This process is called in vitro fertilization and helps to avoid genetic diseases. Unsuitable cells were previously discarded, but with the development of genetic engineering, they can serve as material for experiments. If we consider this point of view, essentially unnecessary material allows specialists to make breakthroughs in science and serve as an object of observation to develop genetic diseases under various stimulants.
From an ethical standpoint, skeptics might think that the consumerist perfection mentality will cause parents to love children with unaltered genes less than transformed. Modern society strives for excellence and comfort, and every parent wants the perfect child. This point of view can be refuted by the argument of a long-standing manner of adopting children. Historically, raising a child in a family is the best environment for forming a solid and valuable personality. This procedure is bureaucratic and complex in many countries, but couples still want to help children from orphanages. Many people love adopted children no less because, besides the desire to receive all the best, society craves to help and have offspring, regardless of its original qualities. It is confirmed by the opinion of parents who have their own and adopted children (“Raising Adopted Children”). Kind and responsible people will want to work hard to raise even the most troublesome children and love them as much as they love their own.
Some may think that a person’s desire to achieve the excellence of their children is irresistible and therefore carries risks and dangers. The theory makes sense since the issue has not yet been sufficiently studied. At the current stage of genetic engineering development, there are already positive results of interventions. For example, in 2018, the Chinese twins Lulu and Nana became the first successful experiment with genes protected from HIV (van Beers 1). It can be said that the experiment was carried out “in secret” because of legal restrictions associated with genetic engineering. However, many scientists and stakeholders received an impetus to develop the field when the result announcement took place. The CRISPR method became the basis for further research and attracted the attention and, to some extent, the approval of even skeptics. Thus, freedom of choice is more about education and morality than about the genetic modification of cells.
Genetic engineering is currently a controversial and new topic, with a focus on positive change. People’s opinions are divided into negative and positive since everyone has a different attitude to discoveries and risks due to different mentality and principles. The main counterarguments to cell modification are fears of negative global changes, lack of love for ordinary children compared to genetically modified ones, and the inability to achieve perfection. On the positive side, changing genes leads to the ability to plan for healthy children, free of hereditary diseases, and conduct further experiments for better results. With the right approach and minimal risks, genetic engineering will enable society to save children from incurable diseases and give them a happy life. Legislative restrictions perform a particular problem in this matter; therefore, restrictive laws should be revised for faster and more effective results. It may involve testing volunteers with terminal illnesses. This approach will help scientists to do their job and make the world a better place as soon as possible.
Works Cited
Beers, Britta C. van. “Rewriting the Human Genome, Rewriting Human Rights Law? Human Rights, Human Dignity, and Human Germline Modification in the CRISPR Era.” Journal of Law and the Biosciences, vol. 7, no. 1, 2020, pp. 1–36.
Kaczmarek, James C., et al. “Advances in the Delivery of RNA Therapeutics: From Concept to Clinical Reality.” Genome Medicine, vol. 9, no. 1, 2017, pp. 1–16.
“Raising Adopted Children.”Raising Children Network, 2020, Web.