Is Genetic Reseach Ethical And Beneficical To Society

Genetic Research can be very beneficial to society. But is it ethical to society? With genetic research, a mother can test her unborn baby for genetic defects and an individual may have the opportunity to fly planes by having laser surgery done on their eyes. No one can really say whether it is ethical or not. It is easy for an individual to state their opinion one way or the other if they are not the one placed in that ethical dilemma. I do feel that more government funding should be provided for genetic research.

Science should be free to pursue genetic research. This could lead to enormous benefits to humanity. It can give parents an opportunity to choose what their children will look like, give employers the opportunity to weed out the bad seed, and allow individuals to enhance their appearance.

Biomedical Research gives parents more choices about what their children will look like by performing a procedure known as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). This process requires in vitro fertilization. The eggs and sperm from both the parents are mixed in a petri dish and the resulting embryos undergo a DNA analysis. After the analysis is completed, the embryos are then inserted into the mother only after the desirable traits are present. "The time may soon arrive when pre-implantation screening will be used to pick desirable traits even in the absence of particular genetic disorders." (Hensley, 2004, pg 601). By allowing this procedure to be done, it can possibly reduce the amount of children that are in placed foster homes simply because their parents did not want them.

Brain scanning can give employers an opportunity to weed out the bad seed. By using Neuroethics, employers will not have to use lie-detector tests any longer. They can simply scan an individual's brain and tell whether or not they are more likely to steal from that company. "It's not futuristic to imagine an employer able to test for who is a good team player, who is a leader or a follower." (Russo, 2007, pg 588). Brain scanning can also help out the police department. If an individual is arrested for any type of crime, scanning the brain will allow the proper authorities to determine the probabilities of whether or not the individual was capable of committing that crime. This can prevent innocent people from being convicted of a crime they did not commit.

Several people today are unhappy with the way they look. Because of this, these people are suffering from a low self-esteem. Bioengineering and self-improvement can change this. According to Caplin (2005), he states "is there anything wrong with using medicine and biological engineering to modify our brains

...