by Margrette Butler

Created on: May 02, 2008

Genetic engineering and screening brings with it a vast arena of moral and social implications that unfortunately, were not well considered prior to development and use of the technology. Acquisition of the knowledge to alter and/or reproduce the genetic makeup of human beings present ethical issues that at times may overshadow any current and future benefits available in human society.

Most would agree that we should be allowed to utilize the scientific knowledge of genetic engineering and screening to reconstruct diseased organs, replace a lost limb or to provide new skin for a burn victim. These examples would rate low on the pole of social or moral implications that would generate ethical opposition. These procedures are performed to benefit a life that is already in existence and the majority would not hesitate to authorize the use of the technology if it benefited their own health or was utilized to save their life or that of a loved one. Here is where we begin to shift to a more complicated mode as we realize that the knowledge and use of genetic engineering and screening could change the face of the next generations in our family, literally as well as figuratively.

Scientists have been engineering genetics successfully since in vitro fertilization or test tube babies became a reality in 1978. Louise Brown was the first test tube baby born July 25, 1978 in Great Brittain. Dr. Patrick Steptoe and Dr. Robert Edwards were her attending physicians and credited with being the first to successfully perform the procedure. Louise Browns mother was diagnosed with a blocked fallopian tubes causing her infertility. In 1981 Elizabeth Jordan Carr was born becoming the first child born as the result of the procedure being performed in the United States by Dr. Howard Jones and Georgeanna Segers Jones in Norfolk, Virginia. Scientist manipulated human sperm and a human egg outside of the normal setting in the mother's womb and then implanted the cells into the uterus of the mother or a surrogate. This particular method has become an accepted alternative for individuals in the modern day society who are facing infertility issues. Due to the expense and the emotional dilemma that often ensues, in vitro, although an accepted alternative, is used a last step treatment in overcoming fertilization issues.

Have we seriously considered the possible scenarios that might arise from such a situation that we ourselves have created willfully? Imagine the explanation given to two children

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