人类基因工程面临的道德问题(The Ethical Problems Faced By Human Genetic Engineering)-2024年精选文档

人类基因工程面临的道德问题(The Ethical Problems Faced By Human Genetic Engineering)

关健词：基因工程，人类克隆，染色体

【】Genetic engineering has been used in human cloning. This has caused serious concern and controversy, such as ethical disaster, genome discrimination and the

uncertainty in transgenic products. So human cloning ought to be restricted and cloning for therapy-use should be strictly controlled.

【s】Genetic Engineering, Human Cloning, genome Introduction

This article discusses some ethical problems which are associated with genetic engineering especially human cloning. Firstly human genetic engineering is deemed to result in ethical disaster. Secondly, gene-based treatment seems to be unreliable. Thirdly, tests can lead to future genome discrimination. Last but not least, transgenic organisms can lead to unpredictable consequences. The author offers his own suggestion that human cloning should not be allowed and that cloning for therapy-use should be strictly controlled.

Nowadays, with genetic engineering developing rapidly, people are facing more and more ethical problems. The first cloned animal, Dolly the sheep, was born 15 years ago. Since then, many other animals have in turn been successfully cloned, and the cloning of people is widely expected to become a reality. Reports of human cloning in early October 1993, by researchers Robert Stillman and Jerry Hall from George Washington University sparked off a firestorm of controversy according to the “leaderu”. What they did was not exactly “human cloning”, as they divided the human embryo into two halves and thus created two distinct individuals. However, they predicted that definite animal cloning would be feasible and one day we would be able to successfully clone the human race. And their prediction came true, unexpectedly after 3 years[1]. Many questions were put forward with the misgivings about cloning humans given rise to by the technological development. Should there be a baseline of genetics technology? What should the baseline be? Should designer babies be allowed? Can we allow cloning for therapy use?

Those who oppose human engineering hold that human genetic engineering will lead to ethical disaster. They

deem that life should be respected, even a small embryo. In some countries, therapy-use cloning is permitted. But we should recognize that when we are able to clone a human embryo, cloning the whole human race will also become possible. And when it becomes technologically possible, it will not be long before the technology is applied. Besides, there is a consensus of opinion amongst most scientists that cloning humans should never be permitted. Because cloning humans would bring a large number of social problems, like what should the cloned human be considered as? For example, if one day cloned human beings are created, then what is the relationship between them and the cells’ providers and the providers’ relatives? So, what they keep on publicizing is that there ought to be a baseline and the baseline is that the technology of animal cloning should never be used on human beings.

One controversial issue is the genes test. During the process of human genome research, scientists discovered a lot of pathogenic and susceptible genes, which have quite valuable application value, since many diseases have been found to be associated with certain genes. Therefore, it is believed that we can test all a person’s

genes so that when he or she goes to the hospital, the doctor can offer suitable treatment based on the related genes. But it is also pointed out that genes are not the only reason for the disease. Consequently, gene-based treatment seems not so dependable.

Such genes tests might intrude on personal privacy. Those who oppose genes tests say that such tests will lead to future genome discrimination. In the year 2001 there was a lawsuit which caused widespread sensation. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the U.S. Northern Santa Fe Railway Company because they collected blood samples from some of the employees for genetic flaw detection and tried to decide the employee’s employment and promotion[2].

Generally, once we agree that genes are not equal, society will enter a serious, segregation situation based on our genetic make-up, and our values will also change. One day we may well judge people simply by the differences in their genes ?C shades of Brave New World. Actually what genes do is just provide a kind of tendency. It’s proved that even the identical twins that have the same genomes can become both mentally and physically totally different.

This has become a human rights issue. Some insurance companies are even running a genes test to determine if it is worthwhile to sign an insurance contract with applicants.

One another controversy related to the genes test is creating designer babies. Because more and more human genomes are being discovered, there are some scientists who suggest that we can do genes tests on new-born babies so that we can find out the pathogenic or some other intelligence related genes and we can optimize the genome to create designer babies. They believe that with such a technique, we can radically cure some currently incurable diseases. It sounds good and feasible, but opponents hold that it can very possibly lead to unpredictable harmful consequences. This opinion is not groundless. In the transgenic plant experiments, there have been many failures, which reveals the uncertainty of this kind of experimentation. As a matter of fact, we can never know what the exact results of changing one’s genes will be. Even though the transgenic individual is successfully created, we are not sure what such organisms will bring to the environment and the human genome. Considering the