The Engineering Of Genetics

Genetic Engineering









Can you imagine being able to decide the characteristics of your child before they are born? Their eye color, hair color, skin tone, height, and weight. Whether or not they are born with a disease or disorder, whether they’re destined for an early death or long life. All of what I just stated could be possible through the advancements in genetic engineering. It all sounds rather nice,   but like everything it has its disadvantages.  
Theoretically through genetic engineering, one could possibly create what we would call a perfect person.   A person who would be more physically, emotionally, and intellectually capable than any other. The only problem is that this person would be expected to be just that, perfect. What would happen if this person wasn’t perfect? They would be considered a failure for not being so. And what would come of all those normal people? They would simply be insufficient and rejected when compared to those who have been genetically engineered.
In the movie Gattaca a man named Jerome Morrow is genetically engineered and was done so to be superior to everyone else, but he suffers from the problem that I described above. He was not perfect. He placed second in a swimming competition. The feeling of failure pushed him to walk out into the street where he was hit by a car and paralyzed from the waist down. The pressure of wanting to be perfect as he was designed to do had gotten the best of him.
Another example of problems due to genetic engineering in the movie Gattaca is   the case of Vincent Freeman. A normal person who didn’t undergo the process of genetic engineering. At birth it was discovered that he would live a relatively short life due to many health problems, particularly his heart condition. Not wanting to have another child with the same predicaments as Vincent, his parents decided for their next child that they would have him genetically engineered. So for Vincent’s entire childhood he was...