Life is a gift we receive when we’re born. Our job is to nurture it and lead a good life. Unfortunately, not everyone lives a healthy life. Some people are born with good genes; they look good, have a healthy structure and system, are good athletes and live a disease free life. On the other hand, there are people, who are born with diabetes, have deformities that cannot be cured or fixed. Some may not live a healthy life and fall prey to diseases such as cancer, HIV and tuberculosis.
Some might not even grow old enough to see the world they come into. Choosing what we want to look like or choosing what your child should be like has never been possible, a person with a disease that has no medicinal cure has never had a choice to live or die, an athlete has never had the chance to change their muscle or bone structure in order to perform better. If they could, should they? Genetic research has crossed many boundaries. It has developed ways, which may be expensive, to do things which enable ‘beggars to be choosers’.
Parents can choose the sex and physical characteristics of their unborn children by modifying its genes inside the mother’s womb. Athletes can run faster, jump higher and lift heavier weights with genetic breakthroughs. (Collins, F. , 1998) Although these things are under development, are they right? Do we have the right to change nature’s ways? Changing the eye-color of an unborn child might not look like something unethical but the outcome can hold significance for many.
Studying an East-African athletes long distance running abilities and applying them to genetics so that other athletes can run similarly, is that something we can do? (Genetic Research in Sport: Benefits and Ethical Concerns, 2007) Some might consider it interfering in nature’s ways. But what about the elderly who can benefit from similar muscle and bone structure genetics? A disabled person being able to walk, a cure for cancer or HIV and the promise for an unborn child to come into this world, a healthy baby, whose disease had been cured inside her mother’s womb.
Genetics research can also be a blessing for mankind. It all depends on your perspective on things.
Works Cited 1. (2007) Genetic Research in Sport: Benefits and Ethical Concerns [Internet], Science Daily. Available from: <http://www. sciencedaily. com/releases/2007/09/070913132916. htm> [Accessed 27 July 2008]. 2. Collins, F. (1998) What Issues in Genetics Research Most Concern 13 Experts Right Now [Internet], Issues in Genetic Research. Available from: < http://www. physics. ohio-state. edu/~wilkins/writing/Assign/topics/genetic-issues. html> [Accessed 27 July 2008].