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Genetic Therapy In Amy Casil's Perfect Stranger

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Children are precious beings that parent's are suppose to love and cherish. When new parent's look at their child they point out all of the features on the child. Commenting on where the child got what feature from what parent. Now imagine the child doesn't look anything like the parents at all. The first thing people think of is adoption. Yet the child is not adopted, simply had many genetic modifications. In the story, “Perfect Stranger” by Amy Casil, this the exact situation that the main character, Gary, finds himself with his son, Denny. In a world where genetic therapy, modifications, is a normal thing, Denny goes through many changes in his life. Gary likes the thought of gene therapy at the beginning of the story, then slowly changes his mind from favoring gene therapy, to being against it, then finally to accepting gene therapy. …show more content…

The first time Denny had therapy done was when he was still in his mother's womb. Carolyn and Gary were told that their son had a heart problem, but that they shouldn't worry because it could be fixed with gene therapy. The other option was to have an abortion. Casil explains, “. . .(doctors) determined that Denny had HLHS,(hypoplastic left heart syndrome),it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to try gene therapy” (315). Gene therapy had become so common to the point that nobody in society batted an eyelash when doctors would go ahead and alter someone's genes. In this scenario gene therapy actually helped to save Denny's life even before he was born. So in a way Gary and Carolyn, as the loving parents they are, went ahead and did anything to help save their child. In their minds, they made the right choice by having this done. Gene therapy opened a new door to anyone who had this type of disease because instead of killing hundred's of newborns they were able to save

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