Designer Children

Recently in my Writing class we have been discussing the topic of genetic engineering. The following essay is based off an article by Bill McKibben. (http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/119/) It is interesting to think about. The question our teacher asked us to answer is Would you want your parents to engineer you in some way? Why or Why not?

1. Although there are several characteristics about me that I wouldn’t mind changing, I would not have wanted my parents to “engineer” me. I come from a family of six children. Each of us carries certain familial qualities, and we have our own look as well. We all have different strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes. I am the fourth child, so if my parents had changed things about me, who’s to say that I am my own person? Wouldn’t I just be an upgrade of my older sisters?
2. Growing up, I was always taught people were unique. Being different from each other allows all of us to do our part in helping one another. If parents can choose their child’s characteristics, it becomes a contest. The child is just another thing to show off like a fancy car or hand bag. It de-humanizes the child and teaches that competing with others is more important than helping them.
3. At first, it seems that being able to give your child more pleasing qualities is a great idea. You could make sure he doesn’t have his father’s crooked nose. You could have that blue-eyed baby you always wanted. But as McKibben discusses in his essay, when will it end? It might be nice to delete genes that could cause the child problems as it grows, but what about all these other “upgrades”?
4. In the long run, all of this engineering could make humans “better”, but it turns our children into creations of our own minds instead of God’s. My parents not only told all of us we were special, but they also told us that God made us that way. We are made in God’s image. Yes, God gave us the brain we have, but is manipulating it really in everyone’s best interest?
5. There are already many pressures put on children and young adults today- to be smarter, work harder, and run faster than everyone else. Like technology tends to do, genetic engineering will make new advances daily. This will make our children an outdated product, “a defective product” as McKibben would say (367). It may seem like a great break through, but in the long run engineering our children will only cripple society. With more parents programming their children, our ability to think for ourselves will slowly diminish. That unique human quality will slowly disappear, and an artificial intelligence will take its place.
6. God gave us free will, and by trying to take such strong control over genetics we would eventually wipe that ability out. I feel that choosing to leave things to mystery is the better choice for society. Parents already work hard to influence their children to be a certain way, and the children tend to oppose this influence in an effort to find themselves. One of the most important parts of being a parent is to pass love down to your children. Love is a key principle that makes us human. God made us because of love; most children are conceived because of love between two people. There may be a protein that can make a well-mannered child, but there is not one that can teach a child to love. Extreme genetic engineering may take humans to a new level of intelligence or physical strength, but we will be no better than glorified robot.

Thoughts?