Argumentative Essay Against Designer Babies

  • Thread starter Thread starter Maxdelrio
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
M

Maxdelrio

Guest
Hi
I am writing a argumentative essay for my high school English class. The prompt for the essay is: Should parents be allowed to genetically modify their unborn children? I am looking for credible sources (articles/studies) arguing against designer babies. Thank you!
 
I understand why you’re asking, but this is something you should research yourself. It’s your assignment and you need to be able to find sources for it by yourself.
 
There was an amazing conference a while back about this exact topic, I can forward you the details of you want.

What it boiled down too is designer babies are a form of classism. Make the perfect pilots, soldiers, farmers? What happens when someone is born who doesn’t want to be any of those? Too bad, you are batch c2. You are designated to job alpha 3.

That said making humans as generally healthy as possible is up for debate.
 
I am presuming that by designer baby you mean genetic manipulation beyond just clearing up dangerous genetic problems (like, say, sickle cell anemia).

One potential argument path you could research: Let’s say that the parents of a three year old want their child to look like, say, Taylor Swift. Can they have plastic surgery done on their child to make her look more like the singer? Wouldn’t we say it is immoral to permanently alter their child for frivolous, minor, or vain reasons? Most arguments against this should also apply to frivolous, minor, or vain genetic tampering.

You can look up articles on the ethics of surgically modifying the already born and what counts as sufficiently grave reason. That kind of surgery is much older than genetic manipulation, so it should be easier to find articles on.
 
Part of the reason for getting you to write an essay is to prompt you to find out the information that you need to write it. Asking other people to do that for you doesn’t count. So off you go and do some searchin’. Come back when you’ve had the essay marked so we can know how you got on.
 
A former English major here:

An essay allows you to argue WITH evidence from credible sources in academia of literature, which I believe you would need to utilize a database. It would be best to ask your English teacher on using sources. Also, try to go to a school library to look for sources.
 
Do you have access to online libraries? Search for journal articles and make sure you always cite your source. Most of the fun is in the research!
 
A book that you might find relevant is C.S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man. It’s short, and among other things discusses why tweaking human genetics turns into oppression of some men by other men.

but I agree you will profit by doing your own research.
 
I’m very sorry I didn’t clarify myself. I have been doing research this past week and I’ve come up with 3 reasons. My thesis is: “Parents shouldn’t be allowed to genetically modify their children because it is an excuse for parents to give their children an advantage, it could be dangerous if it gets into the wrong hands, and designing babies takes away from the natural and procreative act of reproduction.” I’ve decided to use The Catechism of the Catholic Church as one of my sources (allowed by my English teacher). I’ve found that Nazi Eugenics is somewhat similar to genetic modification in the unborn. Now I didn’t want to leave out the scientific problems with this issue so anyone know any credible science journals about the risks of genetic engineering (the use of Crispr cas9). FYI I’ve been using EBSCO
 
Maxdelrio said:
My thesis is: “Parents shouldn’t be allowed to genetically modify their children because it is an excuse for parents to give their children an advantage, it could be dangerous if it gets into the wrong hands, and designing babies takes away from the natural and procreative act of reproduction.”
Click to expand...
That is a good start but “designer babies” don’t take away from the act of reproduction natural or otherwise. Once the base genome is edited the children’s children won’t need to be edited again.
So for example, if we made say an edit that makes us immune to flu then that’s over.

There’s nothing wrong with improving the species. Scientists just wants to take extreme care. Core genome editting iis extremelt tricky BUT that takes us to the other side…
Maxdelrio said:
(the use of Crispr cas9)
Click to expand...
Crisper is a soft edit of sorts. it’s completely harmless because it leaves the base genome intact.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top