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Story is about the young girl, Anna, who was born to help her elder sister Kate who suffered from AML( Acute promyelocytic leukemia). When the family knew that Kate was suffered from the AML, they consulted the doctor and the doctor gave an advise that to have another child who has the genes match with Kate. By the normal sexual inter-cross, there is a rise that the offspring may not be the favorably one, here comes the topic of todays blog, designer babies.
Designer babies are whom being designed before its birth as to obtain an desirable characteristics. In Anna's case, she was designed to have the same blood type as Kate does. This kind of bio-tech did help a lots in terms of the medical aspect.
Basic information on the genetic processes
a baby whose genetic makeup has been artificially selected by genetic engineering combined with in vitro fertilisation to ensure the presence or absence of particular genes or characteristics.
[ a simple and direct introduction from Wiki]
simply, by the In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF)
in case you don't know what it means, "In Vitro" in Latin means "in glass"
the youtube link below was about the IVF
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeigYib39Rs
but before transferring the embryo to the uteri of the mother
the doctor will undergoes the genetic screening and chose for the favorable genes and a future technology, germinal choice technology
which the way to choose for the favorable baby that the couple wants
Although there are many ethicists do challenge this technology did way to far as a human should do and is violating the humility,
we should identify the case in different aspect as there is two sides for everything
In the term of medical,
when the fetus was found suffering some genetic disorders as Down's Syndrome
which can be detect immediately by the AFT ,CVS or PUBS and have the gene corrected
as an result, the baby can be born as a healthy one and free from those genetic disorders
in the above case, it is actually helping the baby to relieve from the medication suffering originally owned
however, in Anne's case,
although with her donation to her sister, she can kept her sister alive, but before hand, her existent on earth was ordered to assist her sister by donation, the genes were specifically set, this is totally unfair to her as everyone on earth should not be bother by others before birth,
Also, in term of ethics,
An embryo is treated as a life, simply saying, but the IVF, since it takes several eggs from the ovary as test example, and only one and mainly one fertilized egg will be transfer back into the mother. This means the others were killed, in the title of useless.
Actually, if a couple would like to have genetic makeup baby as they think they can decide whatever they like, they ought to thought about the consequence, once if their child know how he came from, he might urge that it is humiliating as he came by the individual arrangement of his parents. Moreover there are risks within the process which might do dreadful consequence to the child.
If in terms of preventing inheritance disorders, they should be calm enough “The
In the society, there are millions of passage discussing on the genetic engineering and I do added a few to the references which they did identify the case in depth.
References:
My Sister's Keeper
My Sister's Keeper
Wikipedia
(a suggested website on discussing birth defects)
Debating designer babies <http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/00000006DD57.htm>
(a good essay on the conflicts)
Comments:
Dora Lam
Thank you Wayne, you’ve gave such great explanation on designer babies. After reading this blog, I found the story “My Sister’s Keeper” is similar to the case I demonstrated in my post. I agreed with you point that it was unfair for both Anna and her sister to live upon Anna’s gene. I felt like Anna was misused by the doctors and her parents who designed her. She was forced to accept the fact that her life mission is only to save her sister; controlled by other people like a puppet. Maybe she was proud of herself when she donated her gene to her sister, I don’t know, but I was not comfortable with this designer-babies-idea at all. In my opinion, nobody is responsible for another person’s life in any situation.
ReplyDeleteWayne! Great blog. I loved how you introduced it with the novel, "My Sister's Keeper". I love that novel, and it definitely made this unapproachable topic more relatable to me!
ReplyDeleteYou're definitely very well-researched in this subject, the medical explanations and links were very helpful.
Some constructive criticism is that I noticed that there were some fonts in black. Since your background is also black, it was difficult to read. (I had to highlight it in order to view it!) Also, there were some spelling mistakes (indentify --> identify) in the last part, but otherwise! Great blog!
It was super informative and definitely gave me some new perspective. Thanks!
re Conn,
ReplyDeleteI have the mistake modified
thanks for telling
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI love how your ideas were unique and from such a different perspective. I never considered the embryo as a life and I never thought about the extra embryos required to choose from and alter. What I don’t agree with you on is preventing heredity diseases/disorders. No matter how minuscule that percentage is of babies that have a birth defect; they are still humans which deserve to live normally. If these defects can be prevented; then by all means, they should take the steps to do so. This is something we should be worrying about because the numbers of birth defected babies are in fact rising steadily since the mid-1980s. Think of it like a domino effect-If we can lower the rate of babies with defects, same thing will happen to future generations and so on... Not only do we need to look at the current situation, we must look beyond.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I found your bio blog was very informative and I love how you related it to My Sister’s Keeper! (One of my favorite books and movies!)
SOURCE:
"Birth Defects Rising In The US: Environmental Toxicity Suspected." Health And Energy Company. 17 Nov. 1999. Web. 27 Nov. 2010.
DigitalEssay is one of the best essay writing service that helps to know about the purpose of the essay writing. It's called DigitalEssay.net Good luck!
ReplyDelete