Genetic Engineering: Designer Babies and Cloning

       Genetics has come very far.  A few years ago, you would have no idea weather or not your baby was a boy or a girl.  You wouldn’t know anything about it until it was born.  Now you are able to predetermine its gender, hair color, eye color, and body type.  Gene therapy has very high expectations.  If it lives up to what scientists are saying, you should be able to separate undesirable genes.  In the future it may be like shopping.  You can make the child have a certain hair color or eye color.  You may also be able to choose to have a tall muscular kid, or a short skinny kid.  They call it the ‘ultimate shopping experience.’  A lot of people criticize these procedures.  They say that it crosses many ethical boundaries.  They say that this kind of gene therapy is still a few years away.  This is actually a lot closer to becoming a reality than people think.  They are already using this type engineering on certain different species.  Some types of bacteria are very common for genetic engineering.  Only a few different types of animals have been used, but it’s proven to be a success.

       This isn’t the only type of genetic engineering that is becoming popular.  Cloning is a big issue.  Cloning is the act of making a copy of the original one.  They’ve cloned only one animal so far.  It was a sheep named Dolly.  Cloning isn’t quite what people think it is though.  When an animal is cloned, the clone starts out as a newborn.  As it ages it may become different than the original one.  The environment and eating habits are different things that may effect how the clone grows up.  They are basically like twins, twins aren’t the same person, but they usually look alike.  The main purpose for cloning would be for health though.  People can use the cloning to create new organs for people who need a transplant.  The body won’t reject it and it becomes easier and healthier for the person.

       I think that this will really help families that have many genetic diseases.  It will be more likely that people won’t have a mutated child.  Also, if the technology becomes as advanced as they say it will, we may be able to get rid of some genetic diseases.  Maybe one day you will be able to totally design your baby to be very smart, or athletic.  Maybe you can design him to be a specific height or body weight.  I think that this is a good thing.  I think that if people can get passed the ethical issues, it will be very effective.  When diseases that are life threatening are no longer here, I think everybody will jump aboard and stop criticizing.  The only bad thing is that maybe there won’t be as much diversity in people.  People will decide that there is one certain child that everybody wants, and everybody will start to look more and more alike. Cloning will be useful for making organ transplants, the body won’t try to reject the new Organ.  These are both a good idea for health and will one day be a success.