The Perfect Child

A detailed Summary of The Perfect Child

Parents who create their own children are wrong. The first case of this occurred not too long ago at a fertility clinic in Fairfax, Virginia. A couple by the name of Monique and Scott Collins were able to pick the gender of their child. As a result, the couple had a baby girl, just like they had always dreamed (Time). This is only the start of what can occur. It is predicted that "within a decade or two, it may be possible to screen kids almost before conception for an enormous range of attributes such as height, hair and eye color, and even the illnesses they will be resistant to (Time)." Genetic engineering is when geneticists splice human genes in order to create the characteristic that is desired by the parents. To have the ability to do this is wrong. Children should not be "ordered" like pizza. Couples should not have the capability of wandering into a fertility clinic and asking for a child with blue eyes and blond hair. Our society would turn into World War!

II all over again. Those who were genetically altered would be more powerful and of a higher class than those who were born the natural way. Although genetic engineering may seem like a solution for parents to worry less over whether or not their child

ability of creating their child. The others would have to conceive the natural way. This would create a major gap between the higher class and the lower class (Bara). Designing children should be against the law. The idea should be forgotten about. Children should be born the natural way and not through a test tube.

rry the gene into the body. The third and final method is by "exposing cells to naked DNA in a way that will encourage a few cells to take in the foreign genes and put them to use (Baskin)." After years of splicing these genes, scientists have discovered ways of identifying and treating, in the early stages, about a dozen of the most harmful genetic diseases (Time). Once the scientists figured out it was possible to splice the genes and alter them the way they desired, the idea of designing children came to mind.

BBC2. 6 January 2000. "Life and Death in the 21st Century: Designer Babies."

ng to work. As a result, geneticists have altered the genes in brown fruit flies and mice. In these experiments "A line of brown fruit flies was converted permanently to one of red eyed fruit flies when a gene for red eyes was injected into fly embryos. A strain of giant mice, up to double the normal size, was created by injecting mouse embryos with a hybrid gene - a gene spliced rat growth hormone (Baskin)." In both of these experiments, the new gene was passed on to the offspring. Although this shows great scientific advancement, it is wrong and should not be allowed. First of all it is cruelty to animals. Secondly, once the geneticists "think" they have perfected this, they are going to begin testing this process on human embryos. These tests are wrong because they are tampering with a person who is so tiny that they cannot speak up for themselves.

A designer child is created when geneticists alter certain genes in the human embryo in order to gain the characteristic the couple wants to have in their child. These genes are altered when "doctors inject an artificial human chromosome, carrying made-to-order genes into the fertilized egg. One of these genes will order the cells to commit suicide. This cell suicide gene makes any unwanted traits self-destruct (Begley)." Geneticists have found the gene for good-parenting, genes for obesity, Alzheimer's, red hair, and happiness. Also, "scientists have created an artificial human chromosome which could carry any genes a geneticist or prospective parents designed (BBC2)." Thi

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1743
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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