Designer Babies

Designer babies are the term to describe the future of modifying or selecting our children’s genes for desirable characteristics, both medical and cosmetic. It’s an interesting topic which many people or communities have given their opinions.

Couples have opportunity to screen the gender of the children and the genetic diseases since a few years ago. But recently, scientists have made rapid advances in our ability to modify and change genes. So that means the couples are able to “cure” the characteristics which they don’t like by replacing the DNA. The couples can select their desirable characteristics such as gender, eye colour, hair colour, etc when they pay some companies to do so. But is this morally? Are we destroying the rules of the nature? Is this good for the children and parents?

How is it done?



Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD)
Advanced reproductive techniques involve using In-Vitro Fertilisation to fertilize eggs with sperm in 'test-tubes' outside the mother's body in a laboratory. These techniques allow doctors and parents to reduce the chance that a child will be born with a genetic disorder. Only selected embryos are implanted back into the mother's womb.

What are the pros of designer babies?

-It could allow the parents to screen embryos for genetic diseases and select healthy embryo

-“cure” the genetic diseases in embryos by replacing faulty sections of DNA with healthy DNA

-the technique could weed out the X-linked disorders including hemophilia, Duchene muscular dystrophy and Fragile X syndrome

Take the cases of some families:

The case of Cindy and John Whitley, their first child died at the age of 9 months from a deadly genetic disorder called spinal muscular atrophy. Genetic analysis uncovered that the Whitley’s statistically had a 1 in 4 chance of creating a child with spinal muscular atrophy each time they conceived. Unwilling to risk having another child with the deadly disorder, the Whitley’s used PGD to conceive three children, all healthy.

Take the other case of the Collinses family. This technology allows them to pick the sex of their child. It was first used to select for health due to the X-linked disorders.

Some couples are not able to have children because their children will have a genetic disease and die before they are born. These technologies could allow them to have healthy babies. For them, it is really good for them.

The social and ethical implications:

-Is this technique 100% safe? In recent years, there have been several deaths due to genetic-engineering. There are still huge risks that we may produce physical change. What if a designer baby is born with characteristics that the parents didn’t expect to have? It may probably change the life of the child and his family.

-There would be imbalance between rich people and poor people. This technique is very expensive, people may think why should only rich people be able to eradicate the genetic diseases, but the poor people are not.


-Will it lead to happier parents and children? What would the designer children think? Will they against the genetic changes that their parents chose for them? Will this lead to other social problems? What if they were designed for some purposes such as to help their siblings?

-Is this morally and is this unnatural? It feels like the couples are going to shop a baby that they want, they choose some desirable characteristics from a list of options, and then pay money. It sounds unnatural.

-If designer babies become a trend, it may cause social pressure and comparisons. Also, other problems need to consider is, will discrimination against the people born with disabilities.

Designer babies may be good for some couples that could not have a healthy child. It could reduce the chance to have genetic disorder. It may can save the child from suffering genetic diseases. But if some couples want to custom a baby just because they want a child with good-looking, it may be unnatural and will cause many other social problems.

Reference:
http://singularityhub.com/2009/02/25/designer-babies-like-it-or-not-here-they-come/
http://www.bionetonline.org/English/content/db_cont1.htm
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989987,00.html

Are human being stewards of the world, or the invader?

Are we being stewards of the world as we can greatly change an environment and impact living things that reside there or we are the invader as we have negative impacts to the environment?

In my opinion, we have made both positive and negative impact to the environment. Human invented a lot of new products to make our life better and more comfortable. In the other side, we are also destroying the environment.

Also, human has made negative impacts which affect our biodiversity of our ecosystems. Human has been participating many of excessive activities such as fishing, hunting, industry development which has been causing negative impacts to the environment. One of the impacts that many people recognize is global warming. Global warming brings a lot of effects such as the climate change; the sea level rises because the ice sheet is melting. While the industry is developing, it also makes a lot of pollution, such as water pollution, air pollution.





Who are the victims? The other species that living on the earth! Many animals and plants lost their home and some of them were extinct because we destroyed their homeland. Why do they have to take responsible of the impacts which were made by us!

Wood Bison



Wood Bison can only found in Canada. The wood bison is a subspecies of the North America Bison. But the wood bison is heavier and highest than the North America Bison. It is the largest mammal in the North America. Females give birth to two calves usually within three years.

Why they are endangered?
The population of the wood bison was over 160,000 before 1900. But, due to hunting, the population of wood bison reduced to less than 250 by 1900. Beside for hunting, diseases such as tuberculosis and anthrax are also threatened the population. Now, the wood bison populations have recovered to 9,000 due to the conversation efforts. But they still are endangered specie.

Because of human’s over-hunting and the diseases, the wood bison becomes less and less.

Chinese River Dolphin



The Chinese River Dolphin is only found in the Yangtze River in China and they may be extinct. It has a long, narrow snout. Its skin is light bluish-gray and white on its underside. Adult dolphins could grow up to eight feet and weigh up to 500 lb. Females give birth to one calf within six to twelve months.

Why they are endangered?
The Chinese River Dolphin could only grow in fresh water. Because they could only survive in the fresh water, the water pollution, over-fishing, accidents during heavy river traffic, human activities make the Chinese river dolphin to extinct. Conservationists concluded that the species may now be extinct in the summer of 2007.

The Chinese River Dolphin is a rare species, but because of the pollution, human activities on the river such as over-fishing, heavy river traffic, they may now be extinct.

Polar Bear



There is an recent article about cannibalism has happened among the polar bears. Some scientists believe that cannibalism incident among the polar bears is a result of climate change. Because the ice is melting, the mothers can’t keep the cubs away from males. When the male polar bears get hungry, the cubs would be the target. If this continue happens, there would be less polar bear in the Hudson Bay.


While we are inventing new technology or new products to improve our life, we may have made many negative impacts to our environment. Such as global warming, pollutions, some species lost their homeland because of these impacts. If one species is extinct, it would make a big change or impact on its ecosystem.

Since we have the capacity of changing an environment, we must be aware what we have done and serious influence we’ll give to the environment.


Reference:
Polar bear:
http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=2322656
http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/arctic/area/species/polarbear/
list of endangered species:
http://www.earthsendangered.com/profile.asp?gr=&view=c&ID=9&sp=34