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Ghiloni 1
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Adam Ghiloni
3300:112:151
4-21-05
Life As We Know It:
And What Is To Come
Everybody wants a great, trouble free life with all the luxuries imaginable. With gene
therapy many people think that this will be a possibility in the near future for all people.
Gene therapy has the possibility of curing many and eventually all diseases, deadly or
not. The many successes are very promising, but at the same time the many failed
experiences of gene therapy hurt every time. There is the ethical and moral issue of
changing somebody’s genetic makeup. Great things are possible in the future for gene
therapy, but only time can tell as to what will happen.
“Better Living through Genetics” by James Wood (646) explores the issue of
changing the genetic makeup, to cure diseases, make life better, and even change the
personality type or athletic ability of a child while in a test tube. Wood believes that gene
therapy will be a positive aspect added to our lives. With cautions that need to be used in
the proper ways. By proper ways means, to help in the prevention and curing of diseases,
but not in the changing of personality types of people. Wood believes that as gene
therapy advances and it becomes assessable to all people, that society will limit your
choice of characteristics your child will have. Society will look down on you and your
child because they did not have the proper changes done. Some of these changes include
not making sure that your child is tall, athletic, smart, personable, and/or understandable,
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just to name a few. These are some of the pressures that will be placed on many couples
having or planning on having a child. Also a large amount of abortions may result due to
miscalculations by scientists and doctors. This is backed up by giving two examples of
how statistical errors ended up killing many children.
MedicineNet.com gives an excellent definition of gene therapy, stating “Gene
Therapy is the treatment of disease by replacing, altering, or supplement a gene that is
absent or abnormal and whose absence or abnormality is responsible for the disease.
Gene Therapy may use the genetic material, DNA, itself as the means of treatment”
(Gene Therapy – The Future Is Here). Gene therapy does two main things: it alters the
infected gene(s) in a child still in the embryonic stage, making it impossible for that gene
to replicate and reproduce a particular disease. Also it can take that single gene and
manipulate it so that it will make the child tall or be able to attain a massive amount of
knowledge.
There are many different perspectives on the issue gene therapy and society needs to
be informed of all of these perspectives of gene therapy because the decision as to
whether or not gene therapy should take place in The United States, or even in the world,
is about to be placed in to the hands of voters and society in the near future. At this point
only single gene diseases are being explored, but only time can tell before multi-gene
diseases are conquered, such as appearance and personality. Manipulating the genes of
your child also creates the possibility of these gene manipulations to spread to their kids,
for better or for worse. There has been little to no research done on the side-effects this
may have cause for future generations.
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There are many positive aspects to gene therapy and the possibilities it may create for
an individual and for society as a whole. Scientists have studied almost every singlecelled disease. They are extremely close to the ability to cure each and every one of these
diseases with gene therapy. Some of the more common diseases are cancer, SCID, cystic
fibrosis, hemophilia, HIV, hepatitis B, influenza, and coronary artery disease (Genetics
and Public Policy). There also have been many different tests that ended up being
successful. One of these successful tests is for SCID (Severe Combined
Immunodeficiency Disease), involving an optimized ex-vivo retroviral-mediation gene
transfer: The study found that 17 out of the 18 patient’s who had this procedure, had a
successful outcome (Cavazzann-Calvo, Fischer 2155). Not only is gene therapy doing
great things for SCID, but it is also in the development process of curing and preventing
diabetes (Tian, Bagley, Cretin, Seth, Wucherpfenning). There is also the notion that
humankind is the “superior” race. Since man has the knowledge and the technology, why
not use it to help advance mankind. Don’t we deserve all the comforts that this can
provide for us?
There is also the possibility of parents choosing what they would like their children to
look and act like, make them have a large attention span without a temper or even make
them tall and athletic. This will give parents complete control over how their children
will look and act. Many say that since you have full control over your children until they
hit adulthood then why not make them how you want them to be. An argument to this is
that humans never really have complete control of a child, for instance your child could
fall down and break his/her arm, you don’t want that to happen, therefore you don’t have
complete control over your children while they are still in their adolescences. Many
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people feel that you will have this great choice in deciding how you want your child to
act and look, but in fact as time goes on and society tries to become increasingly
“perfect” you will not have that choice, it will be an obligation of society and you will in
fact not have that choice of how you want you child to be. In the U.S. people are very
competitive; many will try to create the “perfect” child.
As there are many positives to gene therapy, there are just as many negative aspects.
The main argument for the opposing side is the fact that it has many moral and ethical
concerns regarding the alteration of genes. People try to act as God changing things that
they have no right in doing. Human life starts at the moment of conception, and nobody
has the right to abort or change this child just because she is a girl or has the possibility of
being short. The free will of those individuals that were/are products of gene therapy will
be abolished (Silver 561), hence taking away their rights has a human being to create
their own potential. Quoted by Mosher, Zallen says, “Social prejudices will come against
people who are short or mentally disabled” (qtd. in Moshier), just because everybody else
is “perfect” in that world. If the possibility comes to happen only the people who are
wealthy will be able to afford these procedure’s leaving the poor neglected and then
making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Another argument is that mistakes will be
made, in fact they already have. “In northern India, in which use of amniocentesis had
the unfortunate side effect of leading to abortion of large numbers of embryos whose only
defect was that they were female” (Wood 648). Also, “In the mid 1970’s … mothers did
the “responsible” thing and aborted male embryos which were found, through
amniocentesis, to carry an extra Y chromosome” (Wood 650). These errors are not worth
it just to kill an innocent child. What is going to happen once all diseases are gotten rid
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of, there is the possibility of new and even worse diseases coming out and making life
even more “unbearable” as it may be to many people in today’s world.
Gene Therapy should be advanced to the point of curing diseases, but not going to the
extent of changing the cosmetic makeup of a person. Many people find themselves stuck
in the middle on this topic, and it is perfectly fine to stay there in the middle. There is the
possibility of going half-way and stopping, this is not one of those slippery slopes where
it has to be one extreme or the other. Curing all diseases and getting rid of pain, how
wonderful is that. But then morals come into play in where parents will make their
children “better” acting as God to change everything about their children to come. Many
parents will find themselves against gene therapy, but wanting the best for their children.
Seeing how the other kids are excelling and being “forced” by society and wanting what
is best for their child. There is also certain diseases that I feel really should not be a
problem in life, those diseases are STD’s such as HIV, which is one of the single gene
diseases that scientists have the ability to prevent through gene therapy. My theory on
this is if you cannot accept the consequences of having sex then you should not be having
sex, and if you “have to” then get tested and be safe. The same thing goes with getting an
abortion, if you are unable to care for a child or the child is not to your liking, then you
should not be having unprotected sex.
Gene Therapy is making strides every single day. It is getting to that point where the
public is going to have to make a conscience decision about whether gene therapy should
be allowed to go about freely, be constrained in only certain areas, or to be completely
destroyed and not allowed in any ways. Lee Silver sums up gene therapy and
reprogenetics perfectly by saying, “But even as reprogenitics makes dreams come true,
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like all of the most powerful technologies invented by humankind, it may also generate
nightmares of a kind not previously imagined” (Silver 635-636).
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