Creating the "perfect child"

What exactly are designer babies?

As genetic technology advances, the human genome is giving up it's secrets, if we can find out how and what our genes do, we can use this information to create the "perfect child". The term "designer babies", used by journalist's is a process where the mothers fertalised eggs are screened and modified to achieve a desired appearance chosen by the parents. Before the rising importance of vanity in our societies, the main purpose for this procedure was to eliminate the chances of genetic diseases by choosing the healthiest embyro, or to choose the desired gender of the baby. Of course there is nothing wrong with having healthy baby or choosing between a boy or a girl, but this procedure has progressed over the years that parents can change the hair colour, eye colour, and even the face of their future "designer baby". Who knows, with the weird minds in our society parents are bound to experiment with their babies.

Technologies used

Advanced reproductive tehcniques involve IVF or In-vitro fertalisation to fertalise the mothers eggs inside a test tube with sperm outside the mothers body. The eggs are removed from the womans ovaries and placed in a test tube along with chosen male sperm to control the fertilisation. This technique allows parents to highly reduce the risk of the baby being born with a genetic disease. Today, there are only two types of legal reproductive technologies to be used on humans. The first technique is choosing the sperm the fertalises the womans egg, this determines the gender and what kind of genes inherited from the parents the baby will be born with. In-vitro fertalisation is similar to the second technique, but instead, mutliple eggs are fertalised. These fertalised eggs are screened and modified to check for imperfections and genetic disorders before choosing the healthiest embyrios to implant back into the mothers womb.

Is it Ethical?

Designer babies brings up many arguments to the table whether or not this is ethically correct.The problem with tinkering with the genes in sperm and the egg cell is that we give someone the ability to pass on new genes that have never been present in human beings and pass it on for generations to come. This gives us the power to completely change the human race. Although, there is no gaurantee that a child will be happy and successful in the future, this technology gives them that increased probabilty, but if you think about how much money our parents are willing to spend for increased success and happiness in the future, they will be willing to spend a fraction of that money to increase their childs success and happiness in the future by using genetic engineering. However, with the expense of genetic engineering means only the rich class can buy disease free super babies, while the poor class are stuck with the diseases and abnormalities. This difference can totally split the human race into two seperate breeds (Lee Silver).

Here could be a possible scenario in the future; A boss has two job applications, one applicant is a super modified human and the other applicant is a regular non modified person, which would you hire? Obviously this would create conflict. There is also a case where genetic enginearing was used to create a baby with hearing problems for a deaf lesbian couple, where the couple chose a male sperm donor with deafness in his family history. Who would ever want to be born deaf? This technology is ethical to an extent, but the only way to protect our societies from the ability of genetic engineering is public awareness and basically drawing the line on how far we want to go.

My thoughts

Well in my oppinion genetic engineering is useful to an extent. As a catholic I draw the line on changing the appearance on the babies, removing diseases, choosing child gender, and removing genetic disorders is ethical, but using this technology for something so pointless as changing looks? Is something we all need to draw bounderies on.

References

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Polar bears, nearing extinction?

One of the many rising problems in today's society is the low population of the Polar bear. During 2008 the United States declared the status of the Polar Bear under the "Endangered Species Act". Approximately 22 500 Polar bears live throughout the "Five Polar bear nations", 60% living in Canada. Russia, Alaska, Greenland, and Norway being the four other Polar bear nations, harboring the 40% of the Polar bear population. With the increase of carbon emissions over the past 50 years, climate change is and has become one of the biggest issue to Polar bear preservers around the world. Polar bears depend on ice for hunting their main diet of seals, breeding, and denning. With Canada's Hudson's bay melting almost 4 weeks earlier in spring than it did 25 years ago, the hunting time for the Polar bears is severely reduced and without the right amount of nutrition in the Polar bears diet, female bears give birth to fewer cubs, and the Polar bears are smaller in stature. Although, the invasive nature of humans has caused the population of Polar bears to decrease, the growth and the continuing survival of the species today would not be possible without Human interaction. Polar bears are protected throughout the five polar bear nations because of WWF and the Polar bear specialist group and many other organizations. Polar bears are renowned for their symbolism for strength and one of the many beauties of the arctic.

The main concern for the Polar bears is their habitat, the ice that is needed for them to survive. WWF, the leader for Polar bear conservation, works to fund field research by the worlds experts on Polar bear condition and figure out the long term effects of climate change towards the Polar bears. WWF works with governments to reduce green house gas emissions and also to protect critical habitat such as; movement trails and denning habitat. Lastly WWF prevents or removes industrial threats from oil development and promote equal/sustainable consumption of the Polar bears.

Ever since the WWF's impact on Polar bears, native tribes surrounding the five Polar bear nations has promised to keep a quota on their Polar bear hunting until the Polar bear population increases. Other Polar bear conservation groups such as the Polar bear specialist group also work for the well being of the Polar bears. Ever since the beginning of the struggle to preserve the Polar bears, Inuit elders over in Nunavut have seen a higher amount of Polar bears roaming the land over the years, showing signs that Polar bear populations are rising. Nevertheless, this is just the first step to the growth of the Polar bear population thanks to the efforts of many people who are willing to make a difference and interact with these symbolic creatures. However, this poses as a wake up call to all of us and to reduce our green house gas emission because we are not only harming ourselves in the process, but also the biodiversity the makes up the beauty of earth.

References

Reference One - Date visited: October 20th 2010

Reference Two- Date visited: October 20th 2010

Reference Three- Date visited: October 20th 2010

Reference Four - Date visited: October 20th 2010

Reference Five - Date visited: October 20th 2010

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