MykoAnso: 2009

Monday, December 28, 2009

Designer Babies; Are they ethical or selfish?

Why do humans desire to be perfect? I believe that there are three main reasons for this. These reasons branch from three stages present in our everyday lives; wanting acceptance, wanting what we don't have, and wanting to correct our mistakes. First we have an overwhleming desire to fit in and be the same as the people around us so as to be part of the majority of the people around us, because nobody likes to be left out. Then there is the overwhelming desire to be better than the people around us which comes from our envy of others and wanting to compete for everything and even have the same things as others. Finally once we have achieved these two things we look towards the next step of perfection. This is the perfection of likely the last stage in life for most people, the development of our children.

With the advancement of technology in the last decade or so, scientists have been able to actually manipulate our offspring by genetically altering genes to create a certain desired quality that would normally be impossible for some couples to produce. The scientists insert genes from a healthy donor into the embryos of fetuses to cure diseases that are passed down through the generations. Health concerns such as diabetes and high blood pressure are very common in the U.S. and they can surely benefit from this new process. But some people have decided that they would like to choose what physical appearances their child will possess when they grow up. These are what the media likes to call "Designer Babies"The question is whether it is ethical or not and more importantly what will happen if the governments allow this to be accepted into our communities.

The United Kingdom does not accept this procedure because they believe it is unethical and that we should use the process to cure diseases carried on through families instead of improving our DNA. I agree with their decision. We can't live a lie by improving ourselves in an unnatural way. We should be proud to be alive and able to walk and see. Instead we think of ourselves as if it is a competition to see who can have the best looking or smartest children. Of course it would be nice to be naturally smarter or good looking. But that's the problem. It has to be natural. If it's not it's like living a lie.

We've accepted being human and having flaws, the very essence of being human, but is it right to choose the traits of our babies? Is it ideal? If we think of how we've been and what the events of real life suggests, then what is the need for designer babies other than to decrease health concerns at birth? Scientists have discovered processes to genetically alter the fetuses or our babies. They have paved a new way for the enhancement of mankind's abilities. They are playing God. They are being superficial and using their power for the wrong purpose. The only thing we should, and that's if we even ethically should improve on, are health risks and diseases that run throughout generations of families like high blood pressure or diabetes.

I personally believe that it is unacceptable to create "false" human beings. They are still humans and they still live and breathe like us and with us but they are made in our image. We changed the way God meant for them to turn out. I don't find that right. Everything has it's place. If people start to want only boys or only girls for children then it would become dramatically unballanced. The natural way would have saved us from global warming if we'd still been walking today but I digress.

Some countries have already over populated and are being limited to having only one child per family or even killing children based on gender. This happens with a new technology called the sonogram machine that can determine a childs gender even before birth. The British medical journal Lancet estimated that the difference between male and female population would be at 43 million with 100 million girls unaccounted for who were supposed be alive but were not. A huge amount of them would be Chinese and following close behind them would be Indian. If these cultures continue to produce males to such an alarming extent then what does that mean for the future of their race? Having no girls to mate with would mean fights over girls and it would be dramatically unbalanced. The reason for this problem is most likely the immense preference of male children, the sonogram machine being used to limit gender to strictly males, and low or quickly declining fertility levels in those countries.

Things like these lead to genetic mutations and a wide range of possibility for new diseases to form if anything happens incorrectly. We are not ready for that kind of phenomenon to occur. Being ready for disease isn't something we should be need to prepare for. Life is a gift. Maybe some people hope or desire or sort of fantasize about certain physical traits, but once that baby pops out, I don't think a lot of parents would really care anymore. They would just love them for the way they are...

Sources:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/1312708.stm

The War Against Baby Girls
http://www.frcblog.com/2007/04/the-global-war-against-baby-girls/

Time Magazine

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989987-1,00.html

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Human Interactions; Self destructive?

Welcome to my blog. I hope you will learn

something here today

Here is the question we need to ask ourselves:

Many scientists consider humans as the most invasive species, as humans can greatly change an environment and impact living things that reside there. Are we being stewards of the world? Look at an issue in which human intervention has positively or negatively affected the biodiversity of our

ecosystems.

As humans we are massive consumers who disrupt the environment and are careless with our waste. We should realize that we will, sooner than we think, ruin the wonderful place we live in that was once beautiful and flourishing with life. Throughout history, man has erased millions of species from existence. We need to realize that if this continues, our world will cease to exist in a future that is quickly approaching. This is why every person should make an effort to reduce, reuse, recycle and work to maintain life on earth.

Our excessive consumption of resources has a negative impact on our environment. According to "Thegoodhuman.com", about three species go extinct daily. Nearly 1141 out of the estimated 5500 animal species on earth are now endangered or extinct due to the crippling outcome of our human activities. Just think for a second. If three species of animals go extinct EVERY day then by a years time we will have lost 1068 uniquely amazing life forms that deserve to be alive. They were living peacefully for millions of years and now they are dying after we have taken over their environments and created agriculture.

We are too focused on the economy and entertainment to realize that some of the most important species are at risk and could monumentally effect our lives in a matter of years. When i say this i am talking about bees. Bees pollinate a significant amount of our fruit when they gather nectar for their hives. Bees accounted for 9.5 of the world`s total agriculture production in 2008. Now they too are disappearing due to excessive cell phone use. The reason for this being that cell phone radiation travel to a receiver somewhere disrupting their navigation methods. The bees then cannot find their way home, get lost and die. Albert Einstein said once that if bees were eliminated completely that life on earth would end in a matter of four years (Yes this is a wake up call so be afraid).

An article by www.un.org stated that four species or sub species are lost every hour, while forests covering areas the size of four times the size of Belgium are lost yearly. With these devastating numbers how long do we have before the end of the world? What will happen to our world's cute cuddly animals? Panda's and tigers will be gone before we know it and join their friends the dodo and sabertooth in animal heaven. We need to help our animals because it's not fair to them and it will be counter-productive for us as well. Each of us needs to realize that maintaining the world is a life long group effort and that if we want mankind to exist past our lifetimes we should work for it. We have negatively impacted the environment and should know better to just walk a little farther to throw something in the garbage or the recycling bin. We could also turn off lights that we are not using.

If you were to ask me if i thought we were good stewards of the planet I would not be able to give an answer. Yes some of us care about the planet and try to maintain it by growing plants and using techniques to save and reduce the impact of our lives on the environment, but not all of us. Politicians talk about carbon taxes and how we are going to make the world better but there's no follow through. Other people don't really care about the effects we have on everything around us. We are not doing all the things we can do to save our planet. The world could end in our lifetimes. With the absence of bees and the absence of clean air we won't have any other options. More and more babies are being diagnosed with down syndrome and birth defects. This proves how our environment is now taking a toll on ourselves. We wrecked our own lives whether unintentionally or not, and now we have to fix our mistakes. We have put animals on thin ice. Literally, on thin ice because of the polar ice caps melting due to global warming. The fish are dying because the waters are too warm. The diseases are being spread easier and fast because of heat and humidity, and the bees, most importantly, the bees are disappearing. We have not been doing a very good job.

Everyone thinks that the world will be taken care of by people not in their life time. They tell themselves "It's not my problem. Who cares about the future as long as it's not me who has to deal with it". I have heard many people say something along the lines of that. People in Mary Ward think Green Quest is a waste of time but what not everybody knows is that we were given a bunch of recycling bins that we wouldn't have unless Green Quest and it's members made the effort by taking time out of their days to order them (trust me that's a lot). Many think it's not cool to save the environment and say 'who cares other people will do it for us'. This is SELFISH. It's also a bad habit so stop being selfish and stop being lazy. Be a man (or woman) and do what's right!