Script+and+Reflection

Script:

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Reflection of the topic:

When the threat of the life altering disease down syndrome potentially puts your unborn baby at risk, what would you do? If there was a way to rid your future children of this dangers, would you? Have you always wanted a baby girl? What if your baby girl had blonde hair, would that make her a more desirable child? With the very real possibility of genetic engineering, these questions have been posed to parents worldwide. But, is society ready for this extreme pushing of moral boundaries? Is the world ready for a single variety of human? The use of modern reproductive genetic technology in allowing parents and doctors to screen embryos and pre-implanted eggs for unwanted genes needs to stop in in order to stay in accordance with society's ethical boundaries and to preserve the diversity that is "human."

Reproductive genetic technology challenges society from all angles and creates a basis for the social-conflict paradigm. Religiously, ethically, and medically this "new-age" technology is raising concerns from both sides in the aforementioned settings. Religiously, attacks have been made on the technology stating that one should not alter what God has predetermined and designed. On the other hand, many atheists claim that through the use of this application it can be proven that God does not exist because humans can easily alter life.

Reproductive genetic technology is causing a lot of strife medically because of the immense health risks associated with the altering of human DNA and the very possible future of "super-humans". This technology is currently being tested to be used to rid embryos and sperm and egg cells of disease ridden genes and putting in healthy genes instead. This use of the technology could save and improve millions of lives. This seems like a good idea, but through this action, overpopulation is a threat.

If all the "bad" or undesirable genes in humans were replaced by perfect and attractive genes, the the inequalities in society would all be canceled out. This is why the medical side of the debate also creates ethical issues. The variety in humans would eliminated and all people would essentially be alike. Would you want to live on a planet where your athletic abilities are equal with everyone else in the population? How about your intelligence level? Going even farther then that, humans could become incredibly powerful and could control everything else. What would stop people from trying to give their child the upper hand when designing the baby? If all people were already perfect in human capacity terms, there is a very real possibility that parents would begin to wonder if they could give their child super skills, maybe something such as the ability to digest raw meat? If this becomes the case, then there would be no stopping point medically for what the future holds for what one's baby will act, look, think, or behave like.

Perhaps the largest area of concern for reproductive genetic technology is under the heading "ethical". The ethical beliefs of genetic manipulation are incredibly vast due to differences in societal upbringing, religious life or affiliation, educational background, personal experience, and more. To allow all people to not be ethically pushed in their boundaries, genetic reproductive technology should not be pursued.

Reflection of the research:

The most challenging obstacle that arose when completing this project was narrowing down the massive amount of gene therapy information that I obtained. The topic is so large and encompasses so many concepts, that when I began my research I did not know exactly what to look for. Once my thesis was created, I knew what I specifically had to search for and weeded out the unnecessary components of genetic engineering.

The most helpful thing that I did to find information on my topic was to refer to scientific articles that specifically focused on manipulating embryos' genes. These, found mostly under the Scholarly articles and Books, ebooks, reference tabs, were forward, mostly unbiased, and to the point, which made understanding reproductive genetic technology easier. The research that aided me the least were the popular articles. These were typically biased or not very informative on specific of the field and generally gave just overviews on the concept.