Write an essay explaining why scientists involved in germline therapy

Write an essay explaining why scientists involved in germline therapy and cloning are criticized for “playing God.” Include the following in your discussion. a. Expound on the radical nature of these procedures, how scientists tinker with the very core of procreation, and list the possible negative implications. b. Explain how these procedures are different ethically from selecting attractive sexual partners, from vaccination, from liver transplants, artificial insemination, and in vitro fertilization. c. Then give your reasoned ethical opinion concerning whether they should be permitted. 2. Write an essay explaining two (2) ethical difficulties involved in genetic screening. Couples hope to have healthy babies with an opportunity for a good life. Unfortunately, approximately 10% of couples in the United States are infertile. Other couples face the likelihood of birthing children with grave physical disabilities. Still other couples may want to design a certain kind of offspring. Today and tomorrow, these couples, with the aid of new medical advances, can achieve their desires. But, what are the ethical concerns in the development and use of these medical technologies? Are the advances ethical? Which ones? What are the personal and societal consequences of the different procedures? What are their possible abuses? The earlier forms of assisted reproductive technologies (artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, and different forms of ovarian stimulation, implantation of ova and zygotes) have been debated and have generally passed medical ethical approval. In this assignment, we explore the ethics of: 1. Prenatal diagnosis for disease and sex. 2. Whether information should be open to parents and the public, especially insurance companies. 3. Whether abortions should be performed on the basis of the babies’ sex or health. 4. What genetics can do and should do to produce healthy and/or exceptional children. In its broadest terms, the controversies over genetic intervention pit conservatives who value prenatal life and traditional and natural processes against progressives who envision a new and more humane future with less suffering. Historically, new methods of reproduction raise fear and condemnation that gradually lessen as they prove to be reliable and produce healthy babies. There may well come a day when cloning and eugenics are accepted practices, but we must first evaluate the ethics of these and other procedures. The general benefits of the new medical technologies are that: 1. They enable couples to have children. 2. They enable disease-free children. 3. They promise revolutionary cures for many intractable diseases. The possible downsides of these new technologies are that they may: 1. Weaken people’s reverence for life. 2. Weaken respect for religious authority. 3. Encourage women to have abortions. 4. Put society on the slippery slope to horrors such as eugenics. If new medical advances in human reproduction are permitted, they raise new questions in medical ethics: 1. For what situations are they ethical? 2. How can we avoid abuses and slippery slopes? 3. How should applications of these technologies be regulated and/or monitored? When a prenatal diagnosis is performed, important, sensitive information such as genetic predispositions to certain diseases is generated. Some argue that this information should not be generated or at least not be revealed to either the child’s parents or the public. They believe that this information will tempt parents and doctors to play God, to try to design the perfect child, and to have abortions. Others argue that the sex of the fetus should be withheld because of possible parental sexist preferences. Still others would say that this sensitive information should not be made public because it could influence the child’s employment possibilities and his or her ability to obtain affordable insurance later in life. It should be granted that detailed prenatal diagnosis may result in a higher percentage of healthy babies and fulfillment for childbearing couples. It should also be granted that this kind of diagnosis will lead to inevitable abuses in a free society interested in knowledge and profit. It will be practically impossible to keep this kind of knowledge secret for ordinary people. The ethical question is, How can we foster good uses of prenatal diagnosis and discourage its abuses? Somatic cell therapy extracts a population of cells from an individual; removes a defective gene from that population, replacing it with a healthy gene; and returns the geneengineered cells to the patient. This process should render treatable many genetic diseases that are caused by a defect in a single gene. This therapy would seem to be ethical because it is supported by the fundamental moral principle of beneficence: it would relieve human suffering. Should the same ethical approval be extended to germline gene therapy, which replaces genes in sperm, ova, and cells that give rise to sperm and ova? This kind of therapy could ensure that later generations would not inherit a particular disorder, yet some people argue that this process is unethical because we would be “playing God.” It would, they argue, be a prelude to eugenics, not only to removing disease, but also to genetic engineering in the service of creating super people. (Most people are aware of Hitler’s desire to create the Aryan race, but few are aware that Charles Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, introduced the scientific argument for eugenics or that mentally handicapped adults were sterilized in the United States in an attempt to keep them from having handicapped children of their own.) Still others argue that the process is too dangerous. In our present state of knowledge, we could alter the course of embryonic development, for example, by interfering with the work of nature’s time-tested housekeeping genes and produce severely handicapped children. Advocates of germline gene therapy argue that we have always tried eugenics in some form, as by seeking a desirable mate, and that we have always resisted more aggressive eugenic efforts in the past. They also argue that our understanding of genetic processes is somewhat intelligent, and our ability to treat unexpected consequences is somewhat developed. Therefore, they say, any unforeseen results can be taken care of. Moreover, these advocates argue that medicine itself has a prima facie duty to pursue and employ germline gene therapy because it offers us the chance to rid ourselves completely of many serious genetic diseases for which there is no effective treatment. Cloning humans was once the stuff of science fiction. It is now a real probability. This probability is proof for many that science has gone too far in its God-playing. The idea of creating replicas of ourselves raises in our imaginations nightmarish possibilities. How could a person raise his or her identical twin? Would people use their clones as part shops that they could dismember at will when their own body parts wear out? Would we sell clones of gifted people to the highest bidders? How many cloned embryos will have to be discarded because of serious defects? How do we know that the clones would not have major defects? Wouldn’t cloning lessen the worth of individuals and diminish respect for life? Much of the fear of cloning lies in a misperception that persons with the same DNA will be identical. This is not even true of natural identical twins. It would be less true of a clone because of the different uterine environment, mitochondrial differences, a different growth environment, and a different will to live. A clone of Michael Jordan might face pressure to be good at basketball, but he would not be Michael Jordan; he would be himself. In certain circumstances, a couple might decide upon cloning to have offspring that are biologically similar to them. Do they have a right to clone? Cloning might allow couples to have offspring that are free from hereditary diseases. Cloning might also allow a person to obtain needed organs or tissue for transplantation. Cloning might allow the duplication of individuals with great talent. It might also make possible important advances in scientific knowledge. These are all, arguably, human goods, mostly minor, that could be provided by cloning. It is inevitable that attempts will be made to clone humans. These attempts will probably result in numerous abnormalities, abortions, miscarriages, and seriously defective people. Each cloned baby will, however, be a human person entitled to full human rights and respect. These attempts may also create healthy babies and little or no collateral damage. In that brave new world, cloning might well become respectable. We must ask ourselves, however, how many defective clones is an acceptable risk to create one perfect clone? One? Four? Ten? Another topic that is frequently in the news is stem cell research. While most Americans have heard of stem cells, most have no real knowledge of what they are or how medical science uses them. Stem cells have two important characteristics: 1. They are unspecified and renew themselves for long periods through cell division. 2. Under some conditions, they can be induced to become cells with special functions, such as the beating cells of the heart muscle or the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. These characteristics allow scientists to have an unending supply of stem cells to study the way the body processes stem cells and to try to induce similar processes in the laboratory. The hope is that this research will yield regenerative cures for diseases ranging from diabetes to Parkinson’s disease. Three types of stem cells have been identified: embryonic stem (ES) cells, embryonic germ (EG) cells, and adult stem cells. Embryonic stem (ES) cells are generally harvested from eggs that have been fertilized in vitro in the fourth or fifth day after fertilization. At this time, they are hollow microscopic balls of cells called blastocysts. The inner cell mass of the blastocyst is transferred into a plastic laboratory culture dish that contains a nutrient broth called a culture medium. Early procedures at this point introduced non-dividing mouse cells in order to stimulate the inner mass cells to proliferate. Newer procedures avoid using mouse cells. In several days, the inner mass cells proliferate and begin to crowd the culture dish. When this occurs, they are moved to several fresh culture dishes. This process is repeated many times for several months. Embryonic stem cells that have proliferated in cell culture for six or more months without differentiating and appear to be normal are referred to as an embryonic stem cell line. Batches of this cell line can be frozen and shipped to other laboratories for further culture and experimentation. Embryonic germ (EG) cells are removed from the genetic ridge of deliberately aborted new fetuses in about the second month of pregnancy. They have characteristics similar to ES cells. Adult stem cells typically generate the cell types of the tissue in which they reside. A blood-forming adult stem cell in the bone marrow, for example, generally gives rise to red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Recently, it has been discovered that these adult stem cells might be able to develop into other forms such as neurons or heart muscle. For more on this subject, see stemcellresearch.org (www.stemcellresearch.org/facts/miscupdate1.htm). The ethical questions concerning stem cell research mirror those concerning gene therapy and cloning. A particular question arises for researchers who may be morally opposed to abortion. Can they in good conscience experiment on stem cell lines that have been derived from laboratory blastocysts or aborted fetuses? Is harvesting stem cells from fertilized eggs the same as aborting a viable human being? If this procedure is legalized, would we then be committing mass abortion in the name of science? On the other hand, does stem cell research provide the key to curing currently incurable diseases? If so, would stem cell research be justified or would bad ethics lead to bad science? PLACE THIS ORDER OR A SIMILAR ORDER WITH US TODAY AND GET AN AMAZING DISCOUNT :)