Genetic Engineering

With technology advancing quicker than ever right before the public’s eyes, one begins to wonder where the line is to be drawn between letting nature take its course, and allowing humans to have their own options. After reading parts of Brave New World, one can see the effects of human control, and although there are many positive sides to that society, in the long run, the negatives outweigh the benefits. Parents should by no means be able to genetically alter their children.

Although genetically altering children would probably eliminate many diseases and/or disorders that a child may come to have, we tend to forget how sickness becomes a part of who we are. Without sickness as a young child, we would have probably never had to experience pain. Without pain, how could one experience pleasure? As many today say, “what doesn’t kill, makes one stronger” and being strong is definitely not a bad thing.

It would be a wonderful thing to be able to choose your child’s gender, hair color, body type, and even brain power, but how many people would choose to make their child a chubby, dark haired, female with mental retardation? If these capabilities got into the wrong hands, someone could make a bloodthirsty army of intelligent, strong, fierce, males and destroy the world. Or parents would all choose to have intelligent good looking children, and everyone would eventually be exactly the same. You wouldn’t have anyone to look up to, or any dreams to accomplish, because everyone would be doing the same thing. If everyone was a genius, there wouldn’t be any geniuses because there would be no one less intelligent to compare them to.

In Brave New World, the ability to genetically alter embryos was used to create a “structured” society with predetermined castes and jobs for each individual. So if you are born to the low end of the caste system, you will have nothing to aspire for, because you will only be a moron, and will only run an elevator for your entire life. This type of society becomes especially disturbing when one of the individuals doesn’t fit in, or begins to wonder what his life would be like if he were higher up in the caste system.

By allowing nature to take its course, true beauty is achieved through good and bad qualities mixed. Without the bad, there would be no good, because the good would just be ordinary without anything else to judge it against. By allowing parents to genetically alter their children, it seems as if parents gain more freedom, but in actuality it takes the freedom from nature, from chance, and from God.