With these new advances we need to ask the question: where should we draw the line? "As medicine redraws the map of what's possible when it comes to making children, we all have an interest in asking how far we should be allowed to go," (Gibbs). In Brave New World, everything about each individual person is carefully controlled when they are constructed. They are 'born' into a caste system society where everyone knows their place, or their ranking, in life. Everything is controlled from what a person will look like to their mental capacity. No one thinks for themselves, but only believes what they are told over and over again through Hypnopadia. One thing that is not taken into account is individual personality.
Scientists are probably jumping for joy that they can now identify in the earliest stages of development about a dozen of the most serious genetic diseases. This will greatly help in the medical field, but there are so many other variables to consider. Personality of each individual person, as of right now, cannot be created. "The gene or combination of genes responsible for most of our physical and mental attributes hasn't even been identified yet, making the moot the idea of engineering genes in or out of a fetus," (Lemonick). Personality, attitude, opinions, these are all mental capacities and this cannot be controlled by genetics. Parents may select their ideal traits for their child but the human mind is a complicated place. It has the potential to do anything, to think anyway it wants, to override any 'programing' it wants.
Someone once noted how extraordinary it is, that scientists know more about the surface of the moon than they do the surface of the human brain. The complex workings of this vital organ are still a very big mystery to us all. It is, however, the switchboard that controls the body, and therefore has the ability to create a personality to override any advances in science. In the foreword to the 1946 edition of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley said "...Great is truth, but even greater from a practical point of view is silence about truth..." The truth is, flaws exist in every society no matter how perfect it may seem on paper. The same can be said about a person.
Parents may pick out the 'perfect' traits for their child. Blond or brown hair, blue or green eyes, tall or short, tan in the sun or burn, all these options, too many options. These advances in science will have its benefits such as ruling out various genetic diseases and helping children have a healthier life, but that is where the line should be drawn. Parents shouldn't go around thinking they can create a child any way they want it. A computer can be created from a checklist with things like screen size, memory, processor speed. New software can be installed on a computer that can override its previous programming. Children are far from computers, but individual personality has the potential to override all the predetermined factors and show the flaws that are present in any system.
what's wrong with this picture??
Works Cited
Gibbs, Nancy. "Wanted: Someone to Play God." Time 3 March 2008: 68.
http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/jgr/lowres/jgrn482l.jpg
http://www.eugenics.net/papers/quotes.html
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2006.
Lemonick, Michael D. "Designer Babies." Time 11 January 1999. 7 March 2008. http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,989987,00.html
