Genetic Engineering

Designer Babies
What if, by simply taking a pill containing new hormones, you could possess advanced athletic powers and run like an Olympic athlete? What if, by injecting yourself with stem cells you could have the baby of your dreams? Would you do it? If you and others did, what would our society become? What was once unimaginable is now not far from reaching. In the last few decades scientists have had many breakthroughs in genetic engineering. Promises of genetically modifying humans to improve their well being and to treat debilitating illnesses are becoming reality. This sounds very beneficial and harmless but where do we draw the line? Genetic engineering is a slippery slope and should be prohibited.
Allowing genetic engineering to be a choice will eventually lead to misuse.   Genetic engineering will eventually be used to screen   not only for choosing healthy embryos but also embryos that have genes showing that they might have higher than average abilities once they are children or adults. There will be no way to limit the uses of genetic engineering for healthy embryos only. Parents are already choosing what sex they want their baby to be which a dangerous step towards creating designer babies. This will undermine parent’s unconditional love because they will have certain expectations of their genetically enhanced kids and the kids might not meet those expectations.
Genetic engineering is not perfected and cannot be until we can grasp the human genome. The human genome is so complex there is no way we can ever say we know enough about it to start playing around with it. There are many ways the engineer can make mistakes that might not show up until later generations. Harmful changes might not even show up until there is a certain genetic combination. There is no way to test for these kinds of mistakes unless we know what to look for in the first place but there are so many different things that can go wrong we don’t know what to look for.
Genetic...