Late last month, the British House of Lords approved a so-called “designer baby,” escalating the debate over genetic engineering and other body enhancements. Fortunately, the new book More Than Human helps to calm hysterics and explain the issues. Zain Hashmi is a six-year-old boy born with beta thalassaemia major, a potentially fatal genetic disorder. Zain Hashmi is a six-year-old boy born with beta thalassaemia major, a potentially fatal genetic disorder in which the body doesn’t produce enough red blood cells.
Imagine a world in which children are always born healthy. A world in which genetic diseases have been relegated to the history books. No haemophilia. No Huntington's disease. No cystic fibrosis. In the latest news from Britain, conservatives and the religious have blasted researchers for trying to understand what they see as the work of God. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has incurred their wrath by licensing scientists who dare to move genetic material from a faulty egg into the healthy egg of a third parent. British people are not moved by appeals such as this one from Josephine Quintavalle, founder of Comment on Reproductive Ethics: "It is undesirable to create children in this way. It will shock the world. This is playing around with early human life." Quintavalle is the same woman who took the HFEA all the way to the House of Lords in an attempt to prevent the mother of six-year old Zain Hashmi from ensuring that her next child's umbilical cord could be used to cure Zain's blood disease. The Lords were wise enough to let the procedure go ahead. We need to be clear with our politicians about what we expect them to do. We expect them to let us be happy. A major factor in a person's happiness is their health, the health of their friends and the health of their family. Let us express our support for research into disease whenever we have the opportunity.
I wouldn't agree that death is part of life. Instead, death is the end of life. But you touch on a point that resonates with many people. That is, many see death as a natural occurrence that should be embraced. It may very well be natural, but I'm not sure why anyone would embrace it (unless they no longer want life). You can think of this another way: tooth decay is natural, but does that mean we should avoid dental care?
Striving for "improvements" isnt always a good thing, because along with so-called "improvements" comes a whole host of evils that man in his arrogant quest to improve the physical body; fails to address the propensity of the human heart & soul to do evil, engage in greed, and profit from human misery by offering this type of technology to those who can afford to pay the steep price tag. Throughout human history there are relatively few examples where advances in technology have benefitted the masses; actually it has been at their expense and they wind up at the mercy of those in control of it.
Sonia, Is always a pleasure to me reading your comments. Though this one isn't an execption I felt, you pushed boundaries a little bit. Pretty much current technology, is about controlling anything and everything; including life itself. Truth is, We have the whole "game" upside down. We focus effort to extend life instead of "having" a good one. It could be a theme of debate, but is like; if we overcome death we actually are defeating life; isn't death part of life?. mbf
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Being Human in a Scientific Age
Posted by: Sonia Arrison May 6, 2005 05:00 AMLate last month, the British House of Lords approved a so-called “designer baby,” escalating the debate over genetic engineering and other body enhancements. Fortunately, the new book More Than Human helps to calm hysterics and explain the issues. Zain Hashmi is a six-year-old boy born with beta thalassaemia major, a potentially fatal genetic disorder. Zain Hashmi is a six-year-old boy born with beta thalassaemia major, a potentially fatal genetic disorder in which the body doesn’t produce enough red blood cells.
In the latest news from Britain, conservatives and the religious have blasted researchers for trying to understand what they see as the work of God. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has incurred their wrath by licensing scientists who dare to move genetic material from a faulty egg into the healthy egg of a third parent.
British people are not moved by appeals such as this one from Josephine Quintavalle, founder of Comment on Reproductive Ethics: "It is undesirable to create children in this way. It will shock the world. This is playing around with early human life."
Quintavalle is the same woman who took the HFEA all the way to the House of Lords in an attempt to prevent the mother of six-year old Zain Hashmi from ensuring that her next child's umbilical cord could be used to cure Zain's blood disease. The Lords were wise enough to let the procedure go ahead.
We need to be clear with our politicians about what we expect them to do. We expect them to let us be happy. A major factor in a person's happiness is their health, the health of their friends and the health of their family. Let us express our support for research into disease whenever we have the opportunity.
Is always a pleasure to me reading your comments.
Though this one isn't an execption I felt, you pushed boundaries a little bit.
Pretty much current technology, is about controlling anything and everything; including life itself. Truth is, We have the whole "game" upside down. We focus effort to extend life instead of "having" a good one. It could be a theme of debate, but is like; if we overcome death we actually are defeating life; isn't death part of life?.
mbf