Scientific Breakthroughs in Reproduction
Eva Deniszczuk
In October of this year, Chinese scientists did what most people would think would be impossible. They successfully bred two female mice together. ‘Bred’ is a sort of loose term here however. More accurately, would be that they took cells from the mice, and modified them into sex cells, successfully combining, and implanting them into one of the female mice to incubate.
Although this is an amazing scientific breakthrough and discovery, it’s raised some ethical questions about how this technology could be used in the future. Something which has been coined ‘Designer Babies’ has been questioned, which is essentially that with this technology, potential parents would be able to choose everything about their future child. From sex, to hair color, to eye color. Although this doesn’t sound inherently bad, some warn of unforeseen consequences in the future due to altering the gene pool now.
Although currently, scientists believe application of this technique to humans in the near future is implausible, due to how much effort goes into editing genes like this, to say it’s impossible would be short-sighted.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/11/health/mice-unisex-reproduction-china-intl/index.html
Questions:
How do you think altering the gene pool now would affect future generations of humans
If given the opportunity, would you want to pick traits for your own child? What do you think could be some reasons why people oppose this?
Do you think this kind of research and breakthrough should even be further pursued?
I believe that if we tamper with genes this much in order to basically design your baby, the world would become corrupt. I don't see the benefiting doing this and believe that we would be better off not messing with genes.
ReplyDeleteCaroline Wilhelms
I think messing with the genes wouldn't be very beneficial
ReplyDeleteSammie katz
Even though this is interesting, I don't believe we should be tampering with genes in order to get a specific baby in terms of looks, etc. If it has something to do with preventing sickness and disease, then maybe. But if something were to go wrong, which it eventually always does, it would be really bad.-Olamide Ayeni
ReplyDeleteI think that there would be multiple people trying to manipulate this and try to make millions off of it.
ReplyDelete-Nik Meeks
ReplyDeleteThis is something that I don’t think we should use in the future. I believe that if it got as far as to picking features of you children’s genes that everyone would lose there features that make them who they are.
I think this is an interesting study and I wonder if there are any long-term concerns especially with the gene pool. I think the offspring could be more susceptible to some genetic mutations or diseases but also be immune to others. Essentially, this is the same as modifying the genes of foods or other animals, so I think it's kind of like selective breeding. There are ethical issues, so I think this should be further researched.
ReplyDeleteIan He
This is crazy. Wonder if this will ever be tested on humans one day, but I think would be way to risky right now to even consider.
ReplyDeleteI think this fun to do and to experiment on, but other people would start trying to do it and mess something up as far as genes. Also the mice could have an infectious disease.
ReplyDeleteIf this happens everyone who isn't "perfect" due to natural birth will become outcast
ReplyDelete-Ray
This is the same as the identical twins case. Well i think it is a good thing that we are going ahead in science, but it is on how you use this information. A human is perfect just the way it is. This could be helpful if the baby is lacking somewhere in abilities. But we dont know if humans are going to get any side effects by these or not.
ReplyDeleteBTW its anushka
DeleteI think we will have babies with genetically modified traits in the future
ReplyDelete-Daniel Kelly