...Genetic and Reproductive Sciences Abstract This paper is based on genetic and reproductive science and their benefits and limitations regarding individuals, families, and society. The paper covers the screening and treatment for diabetes and what methods are used to prevent it development. The paper also contains information regarding In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and its benefits for individuals and families. The use stems cells and its advantages and disadvantages are also mentioned. Analyze the benefits and limitations of genetic and reproductive sciences for individuals, families, and society. The benefit of genetic science for individuals is that it can determine if the person has a possible genetic disorder and give them a better chance at preventing the disorder from becoming active, monitor the disorder, or treat the disorder. For example, diabetes is a genetic disorder that can be discovered through genetic testing. Lifestyle changes such as exercising and lowering their body mass index (BMI) can prevent someone for developing diabetes, and the testing can monitor diabetes if a person develops it. Diabetes can also be treated by the use of insulin and dieting if monitored correctly. The limitation of genetic science for individuals is the emotional outcome of the test results. Some people may get upset and begin to feel guilty, depressed, or even become anxious once they receive their results (Cho, et al., 2012). The benefits of genetic science...
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...Manipulating Life: The Ethics and Science of Biotechnology The question of whether humans should have the right to clone themselves leads to interesting questions on the nature of human individuality. There is also the ethical question of whether human reproductive cloning in order to replicate ones genetic identity should be allowed at all. If reproductive cloning to create an entire human being were possible, and accessibility and cost were not a factor, should humans have the unrestricted right to clone themselves? The right or even need for humans to clone themselves is as complex a moral or ethical issue as it is a complex bimolecular and genetic procedure. There may be no definitive answer to the ethical or moral dilemmas but in my opinion there is not a reason compelling enough to justify human reproductive cloning of an entire human being, even if it were technically possible at this time. There appear to be too many issues and unknowns in both the science and ethics of human reproductive cloning to allow it even if it were possible. The fear as portrayed in science fiction about armies of replicated humans threatening society and all of our identities being at risk are certainly unfounded as the science proves out (Sommers Smith, 5C - 23). Unlike the renowned geneticist James Watson I am not so certain that having the ability to clone a human would make it a benefit to our society, or should make it a requirement to do so (Grace, pp. 214-215). The unknowns about...
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...rise to many ethical as well as social reactions from the public opinion, non-governmental organization, and the media. This paper aims at providing some insights into this dilemmas, ethical concerns, and the tradeoffs which have been expressed concerning biotechnology over the last decade. It will focus on a few major objects from different sectors that have raised the general attention. A large part of the public opinion agrees and is optimistic about the ability of biotechnology to help and change the quality of life. However, there are visible differences that have been pointed out by global support that aims at moderating the biotechnology use. The Reasoning of Opposing Perspective on Ethical Issues within the Field of Biomedicine The regulation and development of biotechnology has triggered many discussions from various academic fields like the law, economics, politics, and even the history. Specifically, however, the science of genetic engineering of plants, animals, human beings, and all living cells has brought about ethical concerns and various issues to the forefront. Technology has made possible many advancements in biomedicine such as the cloning of the sheep- Dolly, the genetically engineered tomatoes, and the cloning of the human embryo. All these advancements have seen different reactions all in the name of ethics. The classical division existing between the society and science doesn’t seem to revolve when biotechnology is viewed through an ethical lens. Indeed...
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...cloning, reproductive cloning, and therapeutic cloning. Cloning Recombinant DNA cloning consists of transferring DNA fragments from an organism to a self-replicating element, like a bacterial plasmid. The fragments join with the cloning vector and are reproduced with the host cell. This technology is most commonly known for its use in genetically modified foods. DNA fragments that code for better tasting, higher nutrient qualities are spliced into regular plants to produce super foods (US Dept of Energy Genome Program, 2009). Reproductive cloning takes all the genetic information out of a cell and replaces it with DNA from the desired organism. With luck, this cell will begin to divide until it becomes an embryo and can be implanted into a host mother (US Dept of Energy Genome Program, 2009). Gene Therapy and Stem Cell Research Therapeutic cloning is by far the most controversial. This type of cloning produces human embryos for use in research, and usually for the stem cells that can be harvested from these embryos. Stem cells can be used to clone organs and body parts from the patient’s own DNA to eliminate the tissue rejection that commonly occurs from organ transplants (US Dept of Energy Genome Program, 2009). This type of cloning can also be used as gene therapy. In this case, mutated genes are replaced with healthy genes, removed completely, or introduced to fight disease. It is still risky and therefore reserved to cases that have no known cure (Genetics...
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...The control and manipulation of genetic material has become common place in our society. What was once the dream of science fiction authors and fans has become reality. Such topics as stem cell research, in vitro fertilization, and cloning have created quite a stir in scientific communities. However, these advancements do not come without a cost, or without ethical dilemmas. First, a definition of these terms is required. Following that, we will explore some topics and the ethics associated with them. Stem cells exist in all living things. These cells go on to either produce more stem cells or specialize to become different types of living tissue. Stem cells can be broken down into two main classifications, embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. Embryonic stem cells, as the name would imply, are only found in developing embryos. These cells are the most versatile. On the other hand, adult stem cells are only able to transform into a select few types of tissue. (Bongso & Lee, 2005) In vitro fertilization involves the fertilization of an oocyte outside of the female reproductive system. Fertilization occurs in a Petri dish, after which time the embryo is reintroduced into a female uterus where it is allowed to implant and develop. (Seibel, 2008) Cloning is a scientific method of producing an offspring that is genetically identical to the parent. In cloning, only one parent is required, therefore it is considered to be asexual reproduction. (Rugnetta, 2012) All of these...
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...Ethical and Legal Dilemmas of Surrogacy Christie Blackwell HCA 322 Dr. Nine Bell June 17, 2013 Ethical and Legal Dilemmas of Surrogacy Many individuals have a life plan consisting of college, marriage, and then children. After numerous methods of conception, many couples are still unable to conceive a child. A woman who enters into a contract with a couple, agreeing to carry and birth a child, then hand that child over to the contracted couple, who is often unable to conceive own their own naturally is considered surrogacy (Pozgar, 2012). Surrogacy raises many ethical and legal issues for all parties involved. Is it moral or immoral to enter into an agreement with a woman to birth a child for money? What are the legal rights of the woman conceiving or of the couple? Should the child be aware of the process in which he or she was born? Does the child have rights to access the confidential records of the process? These are a just a few questions that will be addressed throughout this paper. Discussed below is the history of surrogacy, the ethical and legal dilemmas that surround surrogacy, alternative solutions to surrogacy, and the potential effects and future implications of how surrogacy may be addressed. There are two types of surrogacy arrangements to consider. These types of surrogacy are genetic and gestational. Genetic or traditional surrogacy is where the surrogate mother contributes her genetic makeup to the offspring, whereas gestational surrogacy consists...
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...[pic] Moral and Ethical Issues in Gene Therapy • Dr • [pic] Introduction Genetic research has advanced in a dramatic fashion in the last decade or so, to the point where it has now become possible to attempt therapeutic genetic modification, in a few cases of human genes, where a defects exists which manifests itself in certain serious diseases. This possibility, known as gene therapy, is only in its infancy. At present, no one knows how effective it will prove to be, even in the few conditions on which it is being tried - whether it will only be of relatively limited application, or whether it will open up many wider possibilities. It suffers both over-optimistic claims from some quarters and exaggerated dangers from others, over which the church needs to be discerning. It is, of course, not possible to assert exactly where the possibilities opened up by today's technology will lead in terms of future developments, but various ethical and moral issues are implicit in the technology which it is important to draw to the Church's attention, so that it is forearmed in an area where developments have been taking place at a bewildering pace. An editorial in the "New Scientist" in April 1994 drew attention to the need to weigh up what may still be future issues today, before the technological "horse" bolts from the stable and it is too late to lock the door. Potential Ethical Issues Perhaps the most basic underlying questions centre on a Christian understanding...
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...pass on genetic makeup through offspring is perhaps the most innate evolutionary urge that is shared among all animals. The ability to pass on one’s DNA through offspring is one of the most basic, evolutionary and universal trait that is shared among all species and one that has stood the test of time. It is a natural form of ensuring that a part of one’s legacy will remain long after one’s passing. Regardless, of whether or not one is afflicted with the biological urge to conceive, one cannot underestimate the societal pressure that is placed on having children. Everyone, at one point or another, has to face the inevitable question by family or friends: “When are you planning to have kids?” or “Why don’t you have children?” Society views having children as a rite of passage and is a universally shared expectation of individuals. Therefore, naturally it is quiet distressing when one is unable to reproduce by natural means. In today’s contemporary society, man is so used to controlling its world and has devised many ways to overcome the constraints set forth by nature. For example proper family planning often involves the use of contraceptives in order to avoid an unplanned pregnancy, and when people are ready to have a child, they sometimes discover that achieving conception is not as easy as they imagined. According to World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Center of Health Statistics, about 8-10% of all couples in the developed world face reproductive issues1...
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...ETHICAL ISSUES RELATED TO REPRODUCTION Oghenebrume Pela Grand Canyon University: HLT 305 11/22/2014 Assisted reproductive technology otherwise known as fertility treatment uses various methods to achieve pregnancy. According to the CDC, the use of these methods has doubled in the last ten years. There has also been an increase in the number of successes based on the most recently collected data as at 2012. The current percentage of people born through ART (assisted reproductive technology) living in the United States is at 1% which, quite frankly, is a lot of people (Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), 2014). In the case of surrogate parenting, an agreement is reached typically between an infertile couple and a woman who is to carry a baby for this couple. There are two main types which are gestational surrogacy and traditional surrogacy. In gestational surrogacy, conception takes place by means of IVF (in vitro fertilization) which would mean that the surrogate mother will have no genetic relationship with the resultant child. In traditional surrogacy, conception will take place either naturally or artificially which would mean that there will be a genetic relationship between the surrogate mother and the pregnancy. Sperm and egg donation as the name implies is a practice in which sperm and eggs or embryos have been donated by a third party to enable the infertile individual or couple to conceive. The donors are usually screened before they can donate and are...
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...I chose procreation as a topic for this paper for a few reasons. First, because of complicity of the issue. Scope of this problem almost unlimited and correlates not only with modern legal and ethical general acceptable principals, but also with core issues of human existence. Second, I do believe, that understanding of origin of procreation and ability to build personal approach in this issue plays significant role for every professional in the Health Care System. Even if in real life situation some of us will never directly participate in solving such problem, still establishing firm personal position on this issue will benefited everyone who involved in running of human services. Third, I think that in the scope of course “Legal and Ethical issues in Health Care”, procreation could be a best example to justify my personal opinion on the social role of ethics and its priority over the social role of legal system. In comparing law and ethics, many people thinking about law as a sphere of clearly identified and easy to recognize points, while sphere of ethical issues for many, more-less limited to the individual stand points in terms of what is good and what is bad. However, it is an ethics established law, not law established ethics. Especially in the procreation dilemma, it turns out ethics plays a big part in all aspects of breeding, in the sense that ethics makes our choices relevant to other people. The decision to have or not to have children has a profound impact on all...
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...from theories to actually cloning genes. Subsequently, The University of Utah Health Sciences did a study on the history of cloning: Mitalipov and colleagues were the first to use somatic cell nuclear transfer to create a human embryo. …In this experiment, researchers took a skin cell from a patient and fused it with a donated egg cell. Key to the success of the experiment was the modification to the culture liquid in which the procedure was done and to the series of electrical pulses used to stimulate the egg to begin its division. Following the cloning controversy of 2004–2005, in which South Korean scientists falsely claimed to have used somatic cell nuclear transfer to create embryonic stem cell lines, the scientific community demanded much stronger evidence that the procedure had actually been successful. (Learn. Genetics) Subsequently, many states in the US began to prohibit the use of therapeutic and reproductive cloning. Regardless, cloning should be decriminalized, with the stipulation that serious regulations be put into place. People, often too caught in the moral implications of cloning never take the time to learn the scientific process. Moral implications are thoughts and actions of people that result from opinion that society is unjust. In Lou Hawthorne’s “A Project to clone Companion Animals,” he discusses the premise of commercializing cloning, through the company Genetic Savings &...
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...luxury item only available to the elite few. The reality is that assisted reproductive technologies (ART) have been helping infertile couples have children since 1978.1 The methods of in vitro fertilization, it's variants, and the other ART procedures are ways for persons that would otherwise have no hope of conception to conceive and, in a rapidly growing percentage of cases, give birth to healthy babies. As the technology has developed, the quality and range of assistance has developed as well. At present, the means of assisted reproduction and the capabilities of these procedures has grown at a somewhat dizzying pace. However, thought to the repercussions of the applications of ART are being disregarded to some extent while the public's knowledge and the understanding of embryologists and geneticists surges forward. It is possible given consideration to things such as the morality of these techniques, the unexplored alternative uses of these procedures, and the potential impact they posses that further development is unnecessary and possibly dangerous. As of 1995, 20,000 babies had been born as a result of ART treatments.2 Since then, many women and couples have sought the services of IVF clinics all over the world with hopes of the miracle of conception. These people are usually ones who suffer from some sort of condition that renders them infertile or sterile. Women are usually afflicted by a reproductive disorder, such as endometriosis, blocked fallopian tubes, amenorrhoea...
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...as samples for different experiments. Such experiments include Southern or Northern blots, in which genes labeled with radioactive or fluorescent chemicals are used as probes for detecting specific genes that may be present in complex mixtures of DNA. Cloned genes also make it easier to study the proteins they encode. Because the genetic code of bacteria is identical to that of eukaryotes, a cloned animal or plant gene that has been introduced into a bacterium can often direct the bacterium to produce its protein product, which can then be purified and used for biochemical experimentation. Cloned genes can also be used for DNA sequencing, which is the determination of the precise order of all the base pairs in the gene. All of these applications require many copies of the DNA molecule that is being studied. Gene cloning also enables scientists to manipulate and study genes in isolation from the organism they came from. This allows researchers to conduct many experiments that would be impossible without cloned genes. For research on humans, this is clearly a major advantage, as direct experimentation on humans has many technical, financial, and ethical limitations. Importance for Medicine and Industry The ability to clone a gene is not only valuable for conducting biological research. Many important pharmaceutical drugs and industrial enzymes are produced from cloned genes. For example, insulin, clotting factors, human growth hormone, cytokines (cell growth stimulants), and several...
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...Eugenics: Health Benefits 1 Running Head: EUGENICS: HEALTH BENEFITS AND THE FUTURE Eugenics: Health Benefits and the Future Abstract The study of eugenics is propelling the world quickly into the future. Eugenics is the study of genetically engineering enhanced humans. This genetic engineering is done through modification of certain traits on an embryonic level, to create a heritable trait. Once modified, these traits will be passed on to the offspring of this individual, as well as demonstrated in that particular individual. The traits that can be modified are as simple as hair color, eye color, skin color, ability to grow muscle mass, body build, etc. They can be as complex as prevention of cancer and other gene-based diseases. Gene modification to create enhanced humans is an evolutionary necessity. In the day and age where the aspects of oneself can be modified with enough money or enough time, it is only natural that society would progress to the point where they would want to modify their offspring. The prospect of eugenics (literally, "well born") is not new, it spans back to the 1800's, when Sir Francis Galton created the word to define the basis for inheritance of intellect. He theorized that through the process of uncontrolled breeding, the unintelligent were outweighing the intelligent. Galton was not too far off according to movies such as Idiocracy, where the world becomes exclusively populated by morons...
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...PART A: The Principal of family determination in organ donation ABSTRACT: This article is written by Mingxu wang,, Wen zang, Xueliang Wang. In this article the point which is stressed upon is that wether family should be given the right to give consent for organ donation of a person if he himself has not stated any statement regarding his will on organ donation. Many ethical views of different societies are discussed, especially the Chinese including the Confucians. Some cases are also explained at the end in which the families of the dead are taking decision about the organ donations. Other problems relating to this matter are also highlighted. There are many school of thoughts based on different religions and different societies. In this article the Chinese, Confucians and Mencius are discussed in detail. The Chinese place their families at a very high position. They give a lot of importance and thus during the process of deciding wether to donate the organs or not, the family is given the highest authority. Confucians however not in favour of the process of organ transplantation. Their point of view is different. They like to keep their moral values. According to them the parts of an individual are gifts from their parents and they should not be messed with.They should be left as such. My opinion, after reading this article, is that after a person dies and he has not stated that wether he would not like to donate the organs then the decision...
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