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Essay / Bioethical Issues Related to Genetic Engineering
Genetic engineering, by definition, is the artificial manipulation, modification and recombination of DNA or other nucleic acid molecules in order to modify an organism or population of organisms. Genetic engineering is beneficial in many ways. In an experiment, the technology was shown to be able to modify human cells to eliminate defects in genetic sequences. Thus, it is possible that it could be used to treat inherited genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis and Fanconi anemia. Furthermore, genetic engineering has also been used in agriculture, where crops are genetically modified to increase their yield, improve their drought tolerance and improve their nutritional properties. Genetic engineering has also been used to create bacteria capable of producing medically useful substances such as insulin and human growth hormone (Augustyn, et al., 2019). However, despite the many benefits that this technology could bring to humanity, it raises controversies, including ethical questions. Ethics is necessary for scientific research to decide what questions should be addressed and what we can do that is deemed appropriate for living things. The importance of ethics in scientific research has been illustrated by the news of a pair of newborn twins from China who were genetically modified to be resistant to HIV (Cyranoski & Ledford, 2018). no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get an original essay Due to this shocking news, a group of scientists published a paper in Nature that calls for a global moratorium on gene editing hereditary. The moratorium is proposed to allow discussions on the technical, scientific, medical, societal, ethical and moral issues that must be considered before allowing germline editing. Many ethical issues are debated by scientists when it comes to genetic engineering, particularly regarding germline editing. One of the ethical issues under discussion is the need for genetic engineering to eliminate inherited genetic diseases in human embryos. Some scientists believe that germline gene editing is unnecessary because there are other, more ethical procedures that could be applied, such as embryo selection through in vitro fertilization (IVF). Another concern is the unpredictable risks that genetic engineering could pose to future generations. Genetic engineering could cause unintended changes through off-target mutations or changes to the genetic sequence could cause unintended negative effects. Another ethical question widely debated within the scientific community is whether parents have the authority to make decisions on behalf of their future children whether or not to modify their genes. By nature, it is impossible to obtain informed consent from unborn children. Therefore, by default, the right to modify children's genes rests with their parents. At the International Summit on Human Genome Editing in 2015, this statement was supported by Hille Haker, PhD, an ethicist at Loyola University Chicago, where she stated that germline gene editing presupposes that the reproductive rights of future parents trump the rights of future children (Hampton, 2016). Genetic engineering is undoubtedly a revolutionary technology that could allow humanity to eliminate terrible diseases.).