Bioscience is moving pretty fast, in fact I wouldn’t be too surprised if we meet the challenge of old age in the next two decades. Consider whether you will use stem cells, nanotech bots that deliver drugs, download your brain, regrow body parts, transhumanism, gene therapy, and cures for everything that has and will affect us. Okay, so let’s talk, okay?
Now, I would like to bring a very interesting point of contention to this dialogue. Based on the title above, you can see that I am pushing the envelope of reality and increasing your level of skepticism. But that’s okay, because I’m here to make you think. You see, there was a very interesting article in Popular Science in October 2013. The intriguing article was titled; “Three Parents, One Baby, No Disease” by Virginia Hughes, who noted in the article that “the approach could lead to the first genetically engineered human who could pass on those genetic traits to her children.”
This is because, when you combine three genetic parents into a single offspring, you could reduce the chances of genetic errors, the offspring would be problem-free. What if you and your spouse wanted to have a baby, but one of you was afraid that she might pass on a pretty terrible genetic trait down your family tree? If you were to combine with another individual, you could prevent that, if everyone did genetic testing beforehand. How much would that be worth? Would it be ethical?
I would say that it is ethical because it prevents future genetic descendants, perhaps even three generations from now, from contracting a terrible genetic disease and dying prematurely. It is also more ethical in the age of socialized medicine to prevent these things, thus saving taxpayers money and government budgets for health services. Ok, I see I haven’t convinced you yet. But let’s say you were born to a mother and a father and had a genetic disease, wouldn’t you have preferred to have had an additional parent, a genetic stepparent?
Perhaps someone who signed a statement that they would not be responsible for you, but would help your mother and father make you happy and healthy and give you a chance at a long life? This is a complicated business. It is full of all sorts of ethical implications. You also have challenges for the future of evolution, or maybe you’re solving an evolutionary problem in advance. It depends how you look at it, but if you know someone who has a genetic disease and is trying to survive it, you wouldn’t wish that on your worst enemy, nor would you wish it on your future offspring. Please consider all this and think about it.