ETHICS AND IMPLICATIONS OF BIOTECHNOLOGY/ HUMAN GENETIC ENGINEERING

Abstract

Genetic engineering is the possibility and actual biotechnological breakthrough from in vitro fertilization to genetic manipulation and recombination of DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) which carries the genetic instructions or blueprints used in the growth and development, functioning and reproduction of all known living organisms. It has to do with the artificial manipulation in the body of human beings, plants and animals so as to give a desired result different from that which the nature of the specie provided. For the purpose of this study, we should be focusing more on human genetic engineering. Some aspects of genetic engineering include: cloning, sperm banking, embryo transfer, prenatal diagnosis, artificial insemination, use of condom as a contraceptive, artificial birth control, euthanasia (mercy killing) and so on. This work therefore seeks to address the ethical issue of the morality behind genetic engineering, the rightness or the wrongness of the act of genetic engineering. Some scholars are of the opinion that genetic engineering reduces the dignity of human person and makes the person involved to look like an object. Whereas the proponents of genetic engineering view it as a new turn in scientific approach towards correcting and or righting the wrong privation of good embedded in the nature of that particular human being, or an evil caused by other non-organic factors. This work would bring to the open, the various types of genetic engineering, and thereafter bring it to the altar of ethics so as to stipulate its merits and demerits and finally make a recommendation for or against the continued existence and propagation of genetic engineering.