What Will Future with The Perfect Human Race Look Like?
Designed babies have become the center of many questions in society with the recent developments of genetic engineering. Moreover, in the laboratory, parents can decide whether their kid has blond or brown hair. Parents may determine their child’s intelligence and, more significantly, their abilities through genes in the future. Soon, the determination of genes leads to creating a perfect human race that includes superhumans who are very healthy, intelligent, and beautiful. The genetically perfect human race has both positive and negative outcomes for the quality of human life and society.
The positive side of the generation of the perfect human race is that thanks to the increasing accumulation of scientific knowledge in our genes, diseases and disorders may be eliminated before birth by engineering. This elimination may lead to a future in which has no people have a disease and a super healthy society. For example, research in China shows that scientists can delete a gene in embryos. With this process, babies were able to be more resistant to HIV (Saplakoglu, 2018). The fact that people are born with perfect genes to be protected from deadly diseases can be a positive implication to raise people’s living standards and dramatically reduce health expenditures in the world. In GATTACA, people can be more resistant to diseases because it is clear how long their life will be before they are born and what diseases they will catch. For instance, before birth, engineers warn families about their children’s genes and possible diseases. Thus, families can decide which genes to delete to protect their babies from diseases such as alcohol addiction and eye problems (Niccol,1997).
On the other hand, the negative implementation of perfect genes will lead to great divisions in society and the formation of different social classes and stratification. In my opinion, this process, which will cause an unfair race among humans, is one of the negative effects of the existence of the perfect human race. The existence of specially crafted people for certain occupations will create great disadvantages for people who want to work in these occupations, and most probably, high-paying jobs will involve special people who are wealthy. Genetic aristocracy and biological castes of people affect distributions of wealth in society. Designed babies who are the future of superior citizens may have great power over those who are not like them. (Fenech,2018). In addition, this separation in society can lead to ethical problems. A social order in which people are evaluated only based on their genes can lead to regressions in human dignity and the rights that everyone has. As accepted by universal laws and society, every human being is equal and should live this life in accordance with human dignity. In the article of UNESCO Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights (as cited in Fenech, 1997), it is stated that “everyone has a right to respect for their dignity and their rights regardless of their genetic characteristics; that dignity makes it imperative not to reduce individuals to their genetic characteristics and to respect their uniqueness and diversity.” Although such rules regulate social order, discrimination based on genetic capability may still occur in daily life, and disdainful behavior by superhumans can damage people’s dignity.
Another negative dimension of the perfect race can create the motivation to have children who are genetically perfect according to the demands of the parents, and the different characteristics of children affect their family relationships with their parents. According to Fenech (2018), “perfect genes change the family dynamic and relationship, as the child born modified would be viewed as biologically better than the siblings or other family members. The unmodified or naturally born child may feel unwanted or unloved, causing psychological harm to a perfectly fine child”. There is an example in GATTACA, genetically natural-born Vincent feels excluded and inadequate by his family and society. The race between him and his brother turned them into enemies rather than two brothers. He had to use someone else’s perfect genes to realize his dreams and prove his capability to his family. (Niccol,1997)
In conclusion, modifying our diseased genes or adding genes that make us more capable can lead to many conveniences in our lives, such as no longer having to worry about our health. On the other hand, perfect genes lead to negative implementations, such as forming different social classes. The stratification may result in an unjust race among people and a social structure that harms human dignity. Furthermore, different perfect traits that come with perfect genes can negatively affect families’ relationships with their children, damaging family dynamics.
References
Fenech, Lisa. (2018). Creating the Perfect Human Race: How Far Will We Go for Designer Families? Creating the Perfect Human Race. Family Court Review. 56. 150–164. 10.1111/fcre.12328.
Niccol, A. (1997). (Director) GATTACA [Film]. Columbia Pictures, Jersey Films.
Saplakoglu, Y. (2018, November 26). Gene-Edited Babies Reportedly Born in China. What Could Go Wrong? Livescience.Com. https://www.livescience.com/64166-first-genetically-modified-babies-risks.html
Simmons, D. (2008) Genetic inequality: Human genetic engineering. Nature Education 1(1):173
