The Commited MAY 2015 | Page 44

TED ATAKENT COLLEGE / 10-E Unethical Edit Mukaddes Selin HINÇ Birth is a miracle for many people. Parents expect some criticisms from their babies. Do they want their baby to be healthy, smart or pretty? The technologies at hand today don’t enable most of these things but we have a new technology which can provide us to have the children of our dream: CRISPR. 42 CRISPR is a new developed technology for arranging genes of babies to fix some health issues that may even be fatal. This is a miracle but “editing” the babies is not ethical. Is this life a game for us to make our baby got prettier to match our expectations? If we bring a soul into life, we shouldn’t be concerned about its appearance. We should only focus on its health. Each country has a genetically inherited general appearance, i.e. Asians’ eyes are slanted but when I want you to imagine someone pretty, the answers are nearly the same: Blue eyes, an upturned nose, and blonde hair. But why? Why do we evaluate these properties as gorgeous? When I say dark hair and dark skin why don’t we think they are the prettiest? If we give our dreams to CRISPR or another technology, we will have the same race with nearly the same properties. We can’t expect all humans to be the same. If we allow a technology like the designing of babies, how can we be sure that everybody will try to make the prettiest baby? There is also a chance to create the most “ugly” baby. If this implementation comes true, think about that baby’s life. We can make a life fade out from the beginning. The concept of editing babies is not ethical. We can’t expect all people to have the same kind of positive qualities. Amanda Hocking has a wonderful quote from her book, “Being liked for the way you looked is worse than not being liked at all.”