BioEthics And Genetic Engineering Essay Research Paper free essay sample

Bio-Ethics And Genetic Engineering Essay, Research Paper Bioethicss Outline: Thesis: It is my belief that familial technology has promise to better world, and it is our ethical duty to research it but non work it. There is a demand to hold a morally right statute law that guides the manner scientific discipline develops this. Outline: I. Social a ) Personal Privacy I. Individual rights B ) Society I. Deduction on society II. Religious a ) Religious concerns B ) Different faith positions III. Medical Benefits a ) What are they B ) What are the hazards IV. Legislation a ) Who regulates it B ) What is regulated The Random House Webster? s College Dictionary defines bioethics as a field of survey and advocate concerned with the deductions of certain medical processs, familial technology, and attention of the terminally ailment. I will be researching and noticing on how bioethics relates to familial technology. Familial technology is a subdivision of biological science covering with the splice and recombining of familial units from populating beings, harmonizing to Webster? s New World Dictionary. I will look at bioethics from the point of position of personal privateness, social effects, spiritual concerns, medicative benefits and statute law. The subject of familial technology stirs up arguments, as it is a controversial country with tremendous potency for both good and bad in our society. Genetically prepared drugs have already helped enormously, in the treament assorted diseases. Biogenetically prepared vaccinums and insulin have already proven their benefit medical specialty. Other genetically engineered drugs are waiting Federal Drug Administration ( FDA ) blessing. However, critics claim that it will do more injury than good. Many theologists believe that familial technology, should non be investigated at all, they feel Mother Nature knows best and any fiddling with familial stuff is evil. The primary ground why theologists argue that familial technology is unethical is because it defies all that has been described in the narrative of creative activity in the bible and other spiritual texts. However, it is my belief that familial technology has promise to better world, and it is our ethical duty to research it but non work it. There is a demand to hold a morally right statute law that guides the manner scientific discipline develops this ( Toward E01. ) It has been merely four decennaries since James D. Watson and Francis H. Crick made one of the most profound finds of all time, the dual spiral construction of DNA. Today we know, human Deoxyribonucleic acid is made of up 23 braces of chromosomes and is found in all cells of the human organic structure. Human cistrons are short sections of Deoxyribonucleic acid that determine human traits, runing from sex to oculus colour ( Toward 1995. ) To a big extent, DNA predetermines what diseases we will acquire, what our IQ will be and how we will work etc. Harmonizing to Time magazines DNA is a complex construction that has 100,000 cistrons and 3 billion chemical codifications ( Isaacson 42 ) which encrypt the very footing of our biological unit. Deoxyribonucleic acid is the true pollex imprint which makes each single unique, and the full contention environing familial technology revolves around the thought of destructing the human by altering this codification. Genetic technology today has already helped many sterile patients to hold kids by a technique called in-vitro fertilisation ( Toward E01. ) In October 1993, the Doctor Jerry L. Hall, a geneticist, at George Washington to University Medical Center cloned a human embryo. This set off an ethical argument. Ethicists asked why the cloning was done, and who will put the guidelines for this pattern in the hereafter. There are those who believe that this issue is about single liberty. They believe that this is non society? s concern and no 1 should be allowed to interfere with a individual? s personal privateness and that nil can be more personal so familial stuff that makes us who we are ( Kolata A1. ) Harmonizing to Richard A. McCormick, S.J. , who teaches divinity at the University of Notre Dame, ? one? s attack to cloning will change harmonizing to the scope of issues one wants to consider. ? For illustration, he says some people look at it from the point of position of assisting sterile twosomes to hold offspring and they say that this is non incorrect because geneticists are merely assisting where female parent nature failed. McCormick believes that people with this point of position are being? scarily myopic? . He sees this issue as? ? highly societal affair, non a inquiry of mere personal privateness. I see three dimensions to the moral inquiry: the integrity of life, the individualism of life, and regard for life ( McCormick 1148. ) ? The danger of familial technology prevarications in the fact that the individualism of life could be lost as natural choice is gives manner to forced choice to propagate and incode a few preferable genetic sciences traits in the lab. The danger is that we may desire merely some qualities in each human, we may desire the ability to pick and take qualities that appeal to us and so set them into a human. In this sort of future there is no respect for the whole homo, we merely want the spots and pieces of that human that we find desirable. We want the right to hold perfect babes but this right implies the right to destruct imperfect babes and this construct leaves a bad gustatory sensation in our oral cavities as we grapple with it. The construct of integrity is being destroyed. Peoples should non be considered as parts, they are who they are, and they are persons with strengths and failings. Familial pieces put together in a lab will neer do an single homo being, it will merely be a android. Do we desire to replace the Mendelian Torahs of heritage with genetically sliced androids? Where will this take us? This hereafter would keep effects far worse so dividing an atom, which resulted into the production of atomic arms. In the 50 million old ages as the homosapiens evolved off from their ape ascendants merely a two per centum mutant in the familial codification has occurred ( Isaacson 43. ) Can we afford to allow the likes of Ventor, a brilliant but impatient geneticist who is forcing rapid development of this field, change the human familial stuff over the following 20 old ages ( Thompson 54. ) Singles cistrons don # 8217 ; t execute a individual map, as one changes a faulty cistron it may hold black unanticipated effects. Even in nature a individual alteration in DNA sequence in the haemoglobin resulted in reaping hook cell anaemia. This alteration occurred because many people were deceasing from malaria in Africa. This familial mutant gave host protection against malaria. However this protection against malaria came at a brawny monetary value. It resulted in haemoglobin, which was faulty, and patients with reaping hook cell have a sawed-off life span and legion painful episodes. Random choice with endurance of the fittest consequences in slow mutative alterations, which are normally good. I hope the familial applied scientists think of an person and wear? t bend him into a monster by induing some characteristics which they think are good. Even Frankenstein realized that he did non? right for my ain benefit to bring down the expletives upon on everlasting coevalss? ( Isaacson 43. ) In the theological manner of believing life come from life. In the Old Testament God creates the universe and Tells Adam and Eve go Forth and multiply. This manner of reproduction insures that we inherit characteristic from two parents. When we start interfering with familial stuff we violate the rights of the embryo. Does the embryo non hold the right to be an single like his parents? God created human in His ain image harmonizing to the Old Testament, Christian theologians argue that we can non better on His work. In generative medical specialty it is rights of parent that clang with the rights of the embryo. Unfortunately, the embryo is non in a place to protect and support himself. Theologians say in today? s generative medical specialty the right of the parent is in direct struggle with the right of the embryo. Does this coevals have the right to alter the hereafter of all coevalss? After all, we in this coevals are merely one little portion in the history of the human race. Do we have the right and or the cognition to change the class of the human race? Respect for life in its present signifier is being destroyed. We are seeking make a new race in the trial tubing. We don? t respect the regulations and ordinances of guerrilla and ape folks, why would this new race esteem our norms. We are traveling excessively fast in a really complex country and we may inadvertently perpetrate race murder of the human race. Let us esteem our present social values and continue them. Since 1883, there have been efforts to better the human race through familial technology. English scientist Francis Galto gave this construct the name eugenics. Eugenicss raised ethical inquiries such as should we seek to make a? maestro race, ? go forthing the non-genetically altered at the underside of society? This term gained a negative intension because of the evil Nazi government that tried to make a? maestro race? and wipe out the Hebrews , who they considered genetically inferior ( Toward E01. ) In the late 1930 # 8217 ; s, Hitler # 8217 ; s government sponsored a Eugenics undertaking. The Eugenics undertaking was supposed to make a individual with perfect cistrons. They were unsuccessful in making the # 8220 ; superior # 8221 ; race because they did non cognize the basic unit of cistrons. This basic unit was discovered in 1953 by Watson and Crick and they called it DNA. In 1990 under the leading of James Watson, the National Institute of Health ( NIH ) , located in Bethesda Maryland, was able to obtain federal financess to get down a human genome-mapping undertaking. The more cistrons that scientists are able to map out, the more familial diseases they will be able to bring around. For illustration, we will be able to pass over out Downs? s Syndrome, Sickle Cell Anemia and other familial diseases that affect 1000000s of people. At present familial testing of amnionic fluid is being done and in some instances the parents choose to abort the faulty foetuss. Scientists are trusting that in the close hereafter they will be able to rectify the faulty cistron in-vivo, by canceling the faulty familial stuff and replacing it with normal cistrons. I believe that there are still many pitiless selfish political leaders like Hitler that would that would work this engineering to seek to do the perfect soldier to take over the universe. Charles Darwin besides advocated bettering them human stock to make a stronger human race. He believed that this would go on by natural choice. Alternatively, we could make this utlizing familial technology. Legislation would guarantee that we do non make a? maestro race? ; we merely use familial technology to bring around familial diseases correct familial defects ( Toward E01. ) Germans learned a really acrimonious lesson about eugenics under Hitler? s government and today they have some of the toughest legislative controls of any state. In Germany Hitler # 8217 ; s errors have left Markss on the German mind, by this I mean Germans are still afraid of familial technology because of Hitler? s ruthless Eugenics undertaking that tried to make a maestro race. An illustration of this is biochemist Carl-Wihelm Vogel. Vogel had set up a Class 1 Lab ( the class denoting the least hazard ) at Hamburg University? s Institute of Biochemistry and Food Chemistry, in order to seek to clone the cistron that codes for the cobra venom factor, a protein that could forestall the rejection of organ grafts. In most states this type of familial research would hardly raise an supercilium ; nevertheless, German Torahs is rigorous ; [ it ] requires a research worker to acquire permission from governments for such a lab, and to wait 2 months between publically denoting intended experiments and transporting them out? giving governments a opportunity to object. ( ? Runing Afoul of German Biotech Regs? 512 ) Vogel ignored these guidelines, so when functionaries from Hamburg? s Environmental Agency were sing a nearby lab and looked in on Vogel, they put a impermanent arrest on his research. Vogel finally filed out the application to transport out his work. In add-on, he may hold to pay a mulct of $ 60,000 ( ? Runing? 512. ) The Sacramento Bee, a newspaper, carried an article that discussed philosophical issues of familial technology. Harmonizing to the article the complete effects of changing a cistron would non be known for at least a coevals. We would be able to measure the positive consequences instantly. However, if the negative long-run effects are hidden, for illustration, doing you more prone to acquire malignant neoplastic disease, 1000000s of people could decease and it would decades before we could set up the cause-effect relationship. Another philosophical concern is should parents be able to take the physical and mental traits of their kids? An article from Science Magazine published in April 1986, it appears that many Germans are discerning about the cistron splicing research happening in their state because it reminds them of the Eugenics undertaking under the Nazis. There are groups in Germany like? Greens? , a naturalist group, who believes that this sort of research can travel amiss and make monsters with high IQ # 8217 ; s. Harmonizing to Greens, natural choice at its gradual gait is the manner to travel. Familial technology holds great promises for the hereafter. Its usage my aid scientists discover remedies for 100s of diseases ; its possible usage for baronial intents is limitless. Unfortunately there is a impudent side to this: its potency for abuse is merely every bit great. Therefore this promising field of scientific discipline must be morally regulated to guarantee that it is non misused. Pharmaceutical companies were the first to acknowledge that utilizing cell biological science, the maps of a cell could be used to make drugs, which were specific for a job and had low toxicity. The success in this field has already been dramatic with few, if any inauspicious effects. So far we have targeted proteins molecules that are produced by RNA/DNA in response to disease and have battled disease at this degree ( Gorman 79. ) We have been able to utilize bacteriums like E. Coli and barm to do genetically engineered drugs and vaccinums. As the population of the universe exploded and figure of people with Diabetes Mellitus and Hypothyroidism were increased, we started running out of endocrine drugs like insulin and tetraiodothyronine which were obtained from carnal variety meats. There were non adequate animate beings to butcher to maintain up with the demand. Biogenetics changed all this, we now safely produce insulin in the research lab, the insulin and tetraiodothyronine is purer, cheaper, better and more plentiful. The pharmaceutical industry so far has been able to show that scientific discipline, if advanced under ethical counsel with good proper purpose can take to good consequences ( Gorman 79. ) Scientific research in genetic sciences is non needfully job in of itself. The fright is that the engineering will fall into unscrupulous custodies and will be exploited ( Gorman 79. ) Legislative regulation of biogentic technology is non traveling to be any easy procedure. It is really clear that immense net incomes can ensue from the right sort of research. For the first clip research scientists are demanding that they be allowed to patent their DNA research. So far the United States federal authorities has been able to mandate that this can non be done. Scientists are tring to brand human cistrons and no one person can hold rights to the codifications of the human genome. By leting patenting for assorted cistron parts we paralyze farther research in this field. However, in this epoch of planetary economic sciences, whatever statute law is passed would hold to be internationally acceptable and enforceable, if it is to win. The United Nations, an international organic structure set up after World War II to assist negociate differences among states, has done a batch of good work but we have non been able to extinguish autocrat like Saddam Hussain. The fright is tha t as familial technology progresss pitiless leaders like Saddam will work the engineering for their ain addition and will withstand the ethical policies of the universe patroling order. The counter consequence of any statute law has been a booming underground that erodes the basic premiss of that statute law. The more a technological invention has possible for fiscal net income ; more this belowground black market thrives. We need to be after to battle this consequence as we advance. This is the portion of familial technology that can non be legislated ; it has to be policed. I can sum up my ethical point of position as it relates to familial technology by citing the words of the encephalons behind this scientific revolution James Watson, neer postpone experiments that have clear defined future benefits for fright of dangers that can? t be quantified. Though it may sound foremost detached, we can respond rationally merely to existent ( as opposed to conjectural ) hazards. Yet for several old ages we postponed of import experiments on the familial footing of malignant neoplastic disease, for illustration, because we took much excessively earnestly specious statements that the cistrons at the root of human malignant neoplastic disease might themselves be unsafe to work with. ( Watson 91 ) If the Fieldss of biogenetics and moralss can work together, integrating each other principles the field of biogentics will revolutionise the universe and do it better topographic point for all. Bibliography Gorman, Christine. ? Drugs By Design. ? Time 11 Jan. 1999: 79-83. Isaacson, Walter. ? The Biotech Century. ? Time 11 Jan. 1999: 42-43. Kolata, Gina. ? The Hot Debate About Cloning Human Embryo. ? New York Times 26 Oct. 1993 New York concluding erectile dysfunction. : A1+ Lemonick, Michael D, and Dick Thompson. ? Rushing To Map Our Deoxyribonucleic acid. ? Time 11 Jan. 1999: 44-51. McCormick, Richard A. ? Should We Clone Humans? ? The Christian Century 110 ( 1993 ) : 1148. Section 1.01? Runing Afoul of German Biotech Regs. ? Science Washington 264 ( 1994 ) : 512 Thompson, Dick. ? Gene Maverick. ? Time 11 Jan. 1999: 54-55. Toward a More Perfect Human? 1995, July 2. The Orange County Register. P. E01 Watson, John D. ? All For The Good. ? Time 11 Jan. 1999: 91.