Gene therapy is just another example of the advancement of modern medicine. It's when a medical professional can actually go into the uterus and take out the gene of the unborn child that could cause a life-threatening disease such as tay-sachs. Well, recently, gene therapy was used to correct a non-fatal disease called spinabifida (excuse the spelling) and this brings up a controversy.
Where do we draw the line where gene therapy is used acceptably and unacceptably? The issue with gene therapy is ultimately, we could make a superhuman by adding this gene and subtracting that one. We could choose to have blonde hair and blues eyes and be this tall and so forth.
Gene therapy is a discovery that saves many lives, but should we use it to improve lives also such as the example above? And if we do, how do we classify what's "improvement" and what's "desire." I personally think that gene therapy should be used in any case where a child is deemed to have a medical abnormality severe enough that the benefits of the gene therapy outweigh the costs of complications and the risks of the procedure.
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My views are similar to yours.
If a child could die or be severely affected negatively due a birth defect or disease, gene therapy is the way to go to try to eliminate these. But like you said, "birth defects" and "diseases" need to be carefully defined.
~Piano-Fighter~
The advancement of technology brought with it many controversaries to society. Gene therapy is great and all, however, how can we decide what's enough. Its the same on the topic for abortion. We think it is ok for rape victims to have abortion. Yet, another women who simply does not want her baby is subjected to everybody's criticism. (Don't get me wrong I am all for abortion, and advancing in the field of technology and health). Where do we draw the line for everything. We simply can not. There is no difference between the definition of the words "improvement" and "desire" in your blog. What you call improvement is also desire. The parents do not want their kids to suffer from cancer, this is the parents desire. So where do we draw the line. The question isn't even that, it is can we even draw the line, or is it going to turn out like abortion, and be banned altoghether.
http://www.progressiveu.org/090204-dont-miss-this-chance
Hey, if it saves lives I am okay with it. it seems kind of selfish to me that you would let a poor child suffer from spina bifida or cancer which could be prevented just so that you can be the hero and ensure the safety of mankind from superhuman qualties.
DISCLAIMER: I am not being rude. I'm stating my opinion. No personal attacks are meant. Please give some leniency on how you take my words. imagine me saying them with a smile. ^__^
You're looking at a narrow view of genetic counseling. At what point should we draw the line? Don't want a kid with brown hair? Get rid of the embryo (as it is now) or just put that into a computer and let the computer sequence the gene for you. Why would we even need to have children the natural way anymore? A computer can come up with the genetic code for us, spit it out, and we can implant it into an empty embryo and implant it into the mother. It might not have any of her genes, but hey... it's exactly the child she always wanted....
~C
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