Pros And Cons Of Biomedical Enhancement

Is the Biomedical Enhancement of Animals Morally Acceptable? While fears of the biomedical enhancement of animals create great debate in modern media, in reality the true facts of animal enhancement have been left largely unknown to the general public. Because animal enhancing practices are so foreign and seemingly fictional to most people, society has then shown the tendency to not favor most forms of biologically enhancing the animals around us. But upon further research into genetic modification it is revealed that not only are these practices generally safe for consumers, but these practices could be instrumentally good for humans through the uses we can make of these organisms. In the following paragraphs I will first discuss the main

The first category I will analyze is the consequentialist argument, which argues that the negative consequences related to bio-enhancement largely outweigh the benefits when it comes to animal technologies. Within this argument I will address three main concerns: the harm animals may experience as a result of biotechnologies, health risks of the engineered animal, and the suffering animals may go through if used for testing purposes. A large amount of studies on animal genetic enhancement report high rates of miscarriage, stillbirth, early death, and genetic mutations and diseases among the modified subjects. In Bernard Rollin’s The Frankenstein Syndrome: Ethical and Social Issues in the Genetic Engineering of Animals, Rollin lays out an argument he calls “the principle of the conservation of welfare”. In this argument, Rollin comes to the conclusion that it is unethical to produce an animal that is worse off than if it was produced through traditional breeding methods. Rollin argues that engineered animals should only be produced if the animals involved experience no more suffering than if they developed through a natural creation and birth. According to Rollin’s argument, many animal engineering practices would then be found unethical because of the high rates of death among attempts. While in many cases this would help regulate biotechnological practices and possibly further the ethical treatment of animals, I disagree with Rollin because in many cases other human benefits may outweigh the extra suffering animals receive because of the large amount of organisms that could be helped. For example if the genetic modification of an animal resulted in the curing of a disease that affects millions of people, this could outweigh the amount of added pain experienced by the cloned animal, in turn making it