3) Comment on the writer’s criticism of human beings in their attitude towards nature and the treatment of illnesses and her neglection of ethic aspects.
After reading this article you get the impression that our world and all people living in this world have lost any sense of reality and especially naturalness. People would like to be copied, they would like to be cloned. They think it would be nice to have a person around them looking exactly the same. I think they are only afraid of becoming older and that they could be forgotten after their death. The clone could live on and be a substitute for them. Here, people do not seem to realize the fact that they are not their clone. Of course, a clone looks like the concerned human being but at the same time he/she is a quite different person. Everyone has his/her own character that makes him/her an individual. This means that no copy of a human being could be a suitable substitute for the human being. What about feelings, behaviour, opinion and the soul? Looking at the appearance it will be the same person but inside he/she will be totally different. Nobody is able and nobody should be allowed to copy someone’s identity. Identity belongs to the individual and has to be protected. Everybody’s identity and character have to be protected in the sense of a human being’s dignity. Science should not be allowed to interfere in such private and personal spheres like someone’s identity.
In contrast to this first point, avoiding diseases sounds like a good aspect of genetic engineering, but as Mrs Walter says this cannot be a solution for all diseases and people’s problems in our society. If babies are prepared in a way that they are supposed to be free from ill genes, they still will not be protected from diseases or other problems for their whole lives. Nobody can prepare young adults to be free from HIV forever, for example. It is on these young adults to think of using condoms otherwise they will not have any protection from the life-threatening illness HIV. Nobody else can save people from this disease but the person himself. But in addition to that it is the society’s and parents’ duty to teach children how to protect themselves.
Mrs Walter talks about releasing babies from ill genes before birth but she continues with talking about those almost absurd parents’ wishes that have nothing to do with good health. Parents want scientists to influence their babies’ appearance and accomplishments to create their perfect à la carte babies. People really seem to think they can choose the perfect baby as they choose the best fruit in the supermarket or as they order tea with or without milk. They have more than only a wrong and inhuman attitude towards getting a baby. Of course, it is a good invention that diseases and illnesses can be recognized and sometimes even be cured before a baby’s birth. But in a world where all people are supposed to be perfect, what would parents do if they get to know that their child is disabled? Referring to the article and how the author presents people, no mother would agree to a disabled child as it does not conform to what a perfect baby should be like. According to this, how does our reality look like? It seems as if Natasha Walter has a horrible vision of what our society will be like in the future. Pessimistic or even realistic people may also argue we already live in this horrible society. Human life is not worth as much as it has been worth in past times. Scientists work on cells, on human life, as if it is lifeless material. such work does not suggest researchers having respect for human life what can be seen as problematic in terms of human dignity inherent in every human life. Parents do not have to accept the baby that grows in the mother’s womb. A woman has the right or at least the possibility to decide on her own whether she wants to have her baby or not. It is only some years ago that it was legally permitted to abort disabled babies in
(851 words)
by Sarah Stöppel
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