Gattaca Genetic Engineering

Marilyn Monroe once said “Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it is better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring”. Perfection is highly impossible to achieve and is even questionably considered to be a concept. With technology advancing, there has come a time when pure nature can be directly affected by the technology we have. Should we have the ability to change the imperfections of our children, or inevitably prevent imperfections from happening? This is the question behind the future genetic engineering. However, many problems have come into play when discussing this futuristic concept. After watching the movie Gattaca and reading several texts in the matter it is apparent that genetic engineering is detrimental to

No matter how far genetic engineering advances there will always be issues and bumps along the road. If genetic engineering is experimented, babies will be born with defects unseen and unheard of by our current generation. In today’s world, babies are born with natural defects everyday. However, doctors and scientists all over the world are working to cure these diseases and the infant mortality rates have plummeted as science has improved. If as a society, we condoned genetic engineering we would open pandora’s box to new and unseen illness and abnormalities that will take years possibly even decades to cure (if there is a cure). Not to mention- the life of pain and agony you would grant an innocent child. Similarly, this idea occurs in the 1997 movie, Gattaca which takes place in a futuristic society where genetic engineering is practiced. In the movie, a family decides to have their first born child naturally and with their second child they decided to consult a geneticist. Although the family treated their second son as genetically inferior as adults the son born naturally could out swim the engineered son. This proved, that designer babies are not always superior and do possess

However, with the rate of technology today, by the time we figure out how to engineer genetics, medical researchers should have already found a cure to many of the incurable diseases that we worry about today. We can consider both genetic engineering and medical research technological advances that will be created at similar rates moving in a parallel. By the time genetic engineering is an option, we most likely will not find it necessary. Medical research and medicine seem to be more logically and reliable when figuring out how to eliminate diseases than genetic engineering. Genetic engineering is unpredictable which could lead to negative affects in finding cures such as creating new and stronger diseases. Occupy Theory states, “Considering that genetic engineering employs viral vector that carries functional gene inside the human body; the consequences are still unknown. There are no clues as to where functional genes are being placed. They may even substitute the important genes, instead of mutated genes. Thus, this leads to another health condition or disease to human” (occupytheory.org). Medical research is a trial and error strategy to curing diseases that is more predictable than mutating genes that could lead to bigger problems. It is clear that the safer route to take in curing diseases is through medical