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Argumentative Synthesis Essay of Designer Babies...

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StudentLastName 1 Student’s Name Professor Lanning ENG 100 3 May 2018 Designer Babies Nowadays, technology has greatly affected how people live their lives ranging from how they find information to the way they travel across the country. It is also making an enormous change in the life of some new children. Many decades ago, could one have imagined that his kids might be able to be designed to have desirable traits or some beautiful features from parents such as a sharp nose or blue eyes? At that time, these were only wishes, but now, with an advanced medical technology, those dreams can completely come true. A designer baby is a baby that is created through a genetic screening or genetic modification process. Therefore, this technology can help to increase overall life expectancy or eliminate different genetic diseases. Although having designer babies seems to exert a positive effect on the future of society, the harm that this brings to human beings still outweighs the benefits. Obviously, the main topic that two authors discussed on their articles is about the new medical technology of embryo selection. The embryo technology typically focuses on genetic engineering, or in other words, scientists are now trying to apply this technology to create a desirable child. In “Building Baby From the Genes Up”, Ronald M. Green, a Professor of Ethics at Dartmouth College gives his supports toward the huge benefits of “designer babies” technology such as eliminating genetic diseases and increasing health and life span. He believes that although genomic technology has certain risks, it will play an important role in the future of human beings: “Although I acknowledge the risks, I believe that we can and will incorporate gene technology into the ongoing human adventure.” (para 16).

StudentLastName 2 On the completely opposite side, in “Genetically Modified Humans? No Thanks”, Richard Hayes, an Executive Director of the Center for Genetics and Society argues that genes modification technology brings a lot of risks and potential harm to the society, such as raising the level of inequalities among people and building up the discrimination, rather than its benefits. Therefore, Hayes strongly disagrees with Green’s idea. From my sources, there are also two documentary films discussing about this issue: “Who’s Afraid of Designer Babies”, and “Designer Babies and Gene Robbery”. Throughout two films, the main content of each one is explaining how a baby is designed before he is born and pointing out various positive and negative aspects of this technology. It is hard to deny that genetic technology is a significant step in the history of human beings. However, the very first reason why “designer babies” technology is not recommended is that it causes potential harms to children and their parents. The process of changing an unborn baby’s DNA is very complicated and challenging. Plus, this technology is only at experimental stage so it is not error-free. If the process fails, the embryo may be accidentally terminated. As a result, not only this technology does not bring any improvements to a future of a baby, but it also put an end to that baby’s life. Moreover, if genetically modifying babies is getting more popular, it may cause psychological effects on parents. Additionally, with this technology, parents are now able to expect what their kids would be when they are born which sets up the parents’ certain expectations. Obviously, the higher their expectation is, the greater their disappointment will be if the process is not successful. More importantly, if couples have a naturally born kid and he is not what they expect, he is likely to be neglected by his parents. The inevitable result is that those ‘failure’ kids will be grown up without any love from their parents and without future. That is ridiculous and heartless. Hayes has also claimed in his article that: “At what point do children

StudentLastName 3 become artifacts designed to someone's specifications rather than members of a family to be nurtured?” (para 3). Therefore, parents should love their children no matter what they look like, even if it is not what they especially wanted. Gene modification technology also has a detrimental impact on society. This technology enlarges the gap among the rich and the poor, or in other words, it may reinforce the inequality in any society. Hayes also has the same viewpoint in his article: “If misapplied, they would exacerbate existing inequalities and reinforce existing modes of discrimination” (para 2). The reason is that the whole procedure to design a baby is not cheap, and only the rich may be able to afford it. Dr Tobin, an Ethicist at Australian Catholic University, argues that “The prospects are that these technologies will be available only to those who can pay for them. It will be only the rich who will be able to screen out undesirable characteristics, and it'll be only the rich who will be able to design their descendants” (qtd. In Who’s Afraid 46:32). The quote from Dr. Tobin means that gene modification technology will probably enlarge the gap among the rich and the poor in society. Furthermore, in comparison with normal kids, those who are designed would most likely to be better looking, smarter, etc, and people may probably believe that genetically modified babies are superior to non-genetically modified ones. Then, the future of most designed kids greatly differs from that of the naturally born ones. Therefore, not only the technology creates the gap between the rich and the poor, but it also creates classes between designer and non-designer babies. Additionally, gender selection is one of the part of “designer babies” technology. If it develops strongly at an international level, this technology is such an alarming harm to certain countries, especially Asian ones such as Vietnam, China, or India. In such countries, most of parents prefer to have a son rather than a daughter in their family. With this technology, every set of parents that wants a baby boy will get one easily. Day by day, while the

StudentLastName 4 number of boys keeps increasing, the number of girls keeps decreasing. That will probably lead to a serious consequence that there will be a lack in one gender, and the ability to reproduce would be eliminated. Lastly, “designer babies” technology can be seen as a violation of a baby’s right. When a couples start the process of designing baby, they literally change the traits, the features, and the mind of a natural child without asking for his permission in advance. In this situation, they will make up the mental, emotional and physical figures of their babies. Sadly, most of parents do it with the only aim of satisfying what they want their kids look likes. They do not care whether their kids want those things or not. Also, their baby will not be able to say anything about the way his parents use or change or even throw away his cells. Basically, it means that they allow themselves to replace some parts of their baby’s life forever, without giving him the chance to think about that. The bottom line is that designing babies is a process in which a baby will be used as a tool or a scientific experiment, instead of being treated like a naturally born human. Bill McKibben shows his opinion on this problem that “when that child grows up, when that child reaches 16 or something, and begin the process of trying to find out who they are, at some level they'll never really be able to complete that very human job. They'll never know that the calm, or the happiness, or whatever it is that they're feeling is quite what theirs. Or this product of this corporate thing inserted into them when they were a small nest of cells.” (qtd. In Designer Babies 25:03). From an opposite perspective, genetic modification technology is a major discovery in the biology world and in the history of medicine. This new technology still has certain benefits which should be taken into consideration. The most important advantage of designing a gene is that it can eliminate the chances of various genetic diseases in a baby before he is born. This can

StudentLastName 5 be seen as an effective solution to cure many deadly diseases nowadays, typically cancer. In some cases, when parents have cancer, the kids that are born in a natural way from those families are highly likely to have the same diseases as their parents. However, if the genes of those kids are modified, the risk of getting cancer will be minimized. Therefore, this technology will not only be a means to lessen the chances of getting affected with certain genetic diseases, but also be a way of increasing the lifetime of a baby. In Green’s article, he has presented his perspective that: “Genomic science is racing toward a future in which foreseeable improvements include reduced susceptibility to a host of diseases, increased life span, better cognitive functioning.” (para 16). While there may be certain benefits of “designer babies” technology, as mentioned above, the cost of this technology is not reasonable for every households and the process is not totally safe. Accordingly, genetically modifying technology will cause more negative and unpredictable effects than benefits. In conclusion, although “designer babies” technology has some certain advantages, the drawbacks of this technology are more important to be concerned. This is not actually a bad or harmful technology; the root of this problem originates from the low awareness of the users. This technology should only be applied to cure genetic diseases for unborn babies rather than anything else. Additionally, there must be no discrimination from parents to their kids. Parents should love their kids no matter how they look or whatever their genders are because having kids is one of the most wonderful moments that can happen in their life.

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Works Cited Designer Babies and Gene Robbery, 9 Dec. 2016, proxy.ulib.csuohio.edu:2159/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=118356. Green, Ronald M. “Building Baby From the Genes Up.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 13 Apr. 2008, www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/04/11/AR2008041103330.html. Hayes, Richard. “Genetically Modified Humans? No Thanks.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 15 Apr. 2008, www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/04/15/AR2008041501620.html. Who's Afraid of Designer Babies? The Ethics of Genetic Screening, 5 Mar. 2009, proxy.ulib.csuohio.edu:2159/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=36105....