surely science trying to enginner and clone children is just another sign of the way society these days is trying to shape and mould its inhabitants
all suggestions are welcome
all suggestions are welcome
Cloning
- Thread starter Non-Logical-Idea-Guy
- Start date
With respect to cloning, you are confusing science fact with science fiction. No one is cloning human babies in the same way that cloned animals are produced. This is illegal in all the countries that have the technology and money to do it and is outlawed by the UN. Human cloning by nuclear transfer is for the purpose of producing an early stage embryo which is then destroyed to obtain the embryonic stem cells within. These stem cells can then be used in therapeutic applications. (Even this, I might add, is banned in most countries.) It is not for the purpose of implanting the cloned embryo in a surrogate female and letting it develop to term. If you do not appreciate the difference between reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning, then please ask for further explanations.
Similarly, it is not possible to genetically engineer an adult human like we can with laboratory model organisms. (For the purposes of genetic engineering, a baby human is essentially an “adult”.) The only examples of human genetic engineering are the few instances of successful gene therapy treatments. If you want further explanation, please ask.
But you are right in that society has been “engineering” the next generation to a very small extent in the sense that more and more we are choosing whether an embryo/fetus is to be born based on its traits. Pre-natal diagnosis has been available for a long time via ultrasound. This technique enables gross developmental defects to be detected and sometimes people choose to abort the fetus as a result. It also allows the early detection of repairable defects that would otherwise cause the early death of the child. For instance, in utero heart surgery on a baby is possible. More recently, genetic pre-natal diagnosis has been able to detect a range of genetic diseases and susceptibilities in unborn fetuses. Sometimes people choose to abort the fetus as a result, other times it provides valuable lifestyle indicators that limit, or prevent, the effects of the disease.
In fact, it has gone even further than that. I am aware of at least a couple of publicized instances of in vitro genetic screening of pre-implantation embryos. In other words, embryos were created by IVF, screened for desirable genetic factors, and only those embryos that were ‘acceptable’ were implanted into the female. As far as I am aware, all these instances were cases were the parents had an existing child in need of a bone marrow transplant in order to survive, so they had another child via in vitro genetic screening of pre-implantation embryos so that the new child would be a suitable genetic match for the existing child. Umbilical cord stem cells from the new "screened" child were then transplanted into the existing child’s bone marrow.
As far as I am concerned, this is all well and good and acceptable. The issue that society will face in the near future is to what extent it will be permissible to reject such pre-implantation embryos and to abort fetuses. As our knowledge of genetics grows, it will be possible for us to determine “non-essential” physical traits, not just the presence of life-threatening genetic diseases. We will be able to determine whether an embryo in a dish or a fetus in the womb will grow into a person with good sporting ability, or musical ability, or blonde hair, or be tall, or short, or violent, or short-sighted etc etc etc. Parents will want to start making decisions based on these traits. This is the situation explored in the movie ‘Gattaca’ (very well in my opinion). Society will face some interesting ethical choices in the very near future.
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Similarly, it is not possible to genetically engineer an adult human like we can with laboratory model organisms. (For the purposes of genetic engineering, a baby human is essentially an “adult”.) The only examples of human genetic engineering are the few instances of successful gene therapy treatments. If you want further explanation, please ask.
But you are right in that society has been “engineering” the next generation to a very small extent in the sense that more and more we are choosing whether an embryo/fetus is to be born based on its traits. Pre-natal diagnosis has been available for a long time via ultrasound. This technique enables gross developmental defects to be detected and sometimes people choose to abort the fetus as a result. It also allows the early detection of repairable defects that would otherwise cause the early death of the child. For instance, in utero heart surgery on a baby is possible. More recently, genetic pre-natal diagnosis has been able to detect a range of genetic diseases and susceptibilities in unborn fetuses. Sometimes people choose to abort the fetus as a result, other times it provides valuable lifestyle indicators that limit, or prevent, the effects of the disease.
In fact, it has gone even further than that. I am aware of at least a couple of publicized instances of in vitro genetic screening of pre-implantation embryos. In other words, embryos were created by IVF, screened for desirable genetic factors, and only those embryos that were ‘acceptable’ were implanted into the female. As far as I am aware, all these instances were cases were the parents had an existing child in need of a bone marrow transplant in order to survive, so they had another child via in vitro genetic screening of pre-implantation embryos so that the new child would be a suitable genetic match for the existing child. Umbilical cord stem cells from the new "screened" child were then transplanted into the existing child’s bone marrow.
As far as I am concerned, this is all well and good and acceptable. The issue that society will face in the near future is to what extent it will be permissible to reject such pre-implantation embryos and to abort fetuses. As our knowledge of genetics grows, it will be possible for us to determine “non-essential” physical traits, not just the presence of life-threatening genetic diseases. We will be able to determine whether an embryo in a dish or a fetus in the womb will grow into a person with good sporting ability, or musical ability, or blonde hair, or be tall, or short, or violent, or short-sighted etc etc etc. Parents will want to start making decisions based on these traits. This is the situation explored in the movie ‘Gattaca’ (very well in my opinion). Society will face some interesting ethical choices in the very near future.
<P>Nice post Hercules, and a good movie tooHercules Rockefeller said:Parents will want to start making decisions based on these traits. This is the situation explored in the movie ‘Gattaca’ (very well in my opinion). Society will face some interesting ethical choices in the very near future.
I think that we are still technologically a ways off before this type of selection really becomes feasible from a societal point of view. However, I don't think that there is any reason to believe that the Gattaca idea is fundamentally impossible.
Obviously any functional society must "shape and mould its inhabitants" to some degree. So using something like genetic engineering to accomplish that is simply a new tool to do something society should do anyway.
So I guess there are two questions here. 1) what kinds of control/shaping can a just society exert on its members? 2) what kinds of genetic engineering technologies are fundamentally unethical? I guess anything that would be considered both just social engineering and ethical genetic engineering would be permissible.
-Dale