Examine The Arguments For And Against Genetic Screening (Essay Sample)

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Religious View: Is Genetic Screening Morally Good?
Moralists, ethicists and religious leaders have questioned the morality and justice of the utilization of genetic screening in ensuring the viability of an offspring a contradictory to both human morality and their religious beliefs. Their argument basically says that scientists, with their ability of producing a child with the “perfect” set of genes, seem to be playing as “God.”
The utilization of genetic screening has provided many individuals early genetic analysis that would help them see if their child would be a healthy being or person with large sets of chromosomal aberrations. Apart from that, under the genetic screening studies, in vitro fertilization plays a role wherein the parents could choose what sets of genes they would like their child to have. In this manner, they would be able to produce a child that is “perfect” enough for their taste. (Webster, 2009)
Moralists’ first point in their argument says that, in the context of testing the genetic make-up of an embryo, it is morally wrong. This is because they see an embryo as already a human being as stated by Pope John Paul II in his published work in 1995, The Gospel of Life, “Human embryos obtained in vitro are human beings and are subjects with rights; their dignity and right to life must be respected from the first moment of their existence,” (Vestal, 2008). Due to this point of view, they say that testing an embryo in any kind of way is a form of injustice because 1) the embryo is aware of the testing but 2) the embryo was not asked whether or not it agrees on being tested.
Their second argument is that in some cases, genetic testing, such as the amniotic karyotyping, the child or the embryo may be subjected to abortion since these embryos only contain a few number of cells and lessening it would cause the embryo to spontaneously abort. As their point that each part of the human life cycle is a human itself, then testing the embryo which would lead to the spontaneous abortion of the embryo is considered as murder. (Robinson, 2008)
In their third point, for embryos who test positive for chromosomal aberrations which would lead to phenotypically abnormal features, parents have the choice to take the embryo in vitro and correct the genetic aberration. In this manner, parents could choose the features they want for their child. In other words, it would be like a computer program wherein parents “photoshop” their would-be children and thus eliminating the probability of having a child with an abnormal genetic make-up. Scientists argue that this is an effective way of eliminating unnecessary genetic structures that would tend to lead to a reduced advantage when it comes to the gene pool of the human species. Adding chromosomal aberrations in the gene pool would tend to produce...