There is also an extensive range of social implications related to the process of PGD that come in the forms of economic, ethical, cultural and environmental. PGD provides an opportunity to eliminate a disease within a family (if the disease is inheritable and a single-gene disease). This is because through PGD, the embryos carrying the specific disease will not be used for implantation. Parents using PGD on all of their children will allow all of the children to not carry the disease and pass it on to their own children, and the danger for future generations will no longer exist from that family. This can aid in finances due to money not being spent that would have been required to compensate issues surrounding diseases or disabilities as
while sufferers of these problems are an issue, it is just very costly caring for these people and can be avoided because of PGD. PGD will also prevent the heartache and amount of work that goes into caring for those sufferers by their parents (these people are still important and there issues do not change what they are worth as a person). By going through IVF and PGD, if there are embryos left over that a clear of disease and disabilities, they can be frozen then used later on so a child could be born without the mother going through the emotionally and physically difficult process of IVF and PGD again, however, 5% of embryos fail to thaw successfully.3 This is only a small percentage though, and the benefits of this outweigh the negatives as if thawing is successful, the mother will not need to go through the cycle again and will save on financial costs and the chances of negative biological implications. A cycle of IVF and PGD is also financially significant as one cycle costs $12,000 however the New Zealand government pays for 2 cycles but if both cycles were unsuccessful the patient has to pay for any future cycles. This causes a gap between rich and poor families. While rich families are probably able to pay for future cycles, less financially stable families will be unable to resulting in them being at risk. They are more likely to have a child with a disability or disease because they were unable to have PGD, resulting in more financial strain. This question is PGD is that great if not everybody is able to afford it, but maybe poorer families should be supplied with more cycles? It is unfair for a family’s financial situation to dictate whether they can have children or not. The change in women’s role is also a social implication as the older a women gets the more likely it is she will have an embryo that has chromosomal abnormalities, which is why PGD is becoming increasingly common as women have children later. I believe that women who are older should be permitted to have the two cycles paid for by the government as their children are as at risk of disabilities as others, and women should be supported for continuing their careers in the work force – not punished. It is also important to note that with disability and disease does not take away from someone’s life worth, but it is a difficult experience for the parents raising a child that has disabilities and diseases and PGD limits these diseases for occurring. Another social implication is the ideas of ‘designer babies,’ ‘saviour siblings’ and gender selecting. In my opinion, all three social implications should be prohibited (and for the most part are in New Zealand with a few exceptions).10 Designer babies is all about the parents creating their ideal child – choosing features they want present on their child which in my opinion is ethically wrong. Biological conditions such as Cystic Fibrosis affect the health of the child and would be preferable to avoid so a child can grow to be healthy, yet designer babies is shallow behaviour presented by the parents and should never be ethically okay – the child should be valued by other features and not shallow appearances. Saviour siblings is also a negative social implication I personally disagree with as while
The addition of a child into a family’s home is a happy occasion. Unfortunately, some families are unable to have a child due to unforeseen problems, and they must pursue other means than natural pregnancy. Some couples adopt and other couples follow a different path; they utilize in vitro fertilization or surrogate motherhood. The process is complicated, unreliable, but ultimately can give the parents the gift of a child they otherwise could not have had. At the same time, as the process becomes more and more advanced and scientists are able to predict the outcome of the technique, the choice of what child is born is placed in the hands of the parents. Instead of waiting to see if the child had the mother’s eyes, the father’s hair or Grandma’s heart problem, the parents and doctors can select the best eggs and the best sperm to create the perfect child. Many see the rise of in vitro fertilization as the second coming of the Eugenics movement of the 19th and early 20th century. A process that is able to bring joy to so many parents is also seen as deciding who is able to reproduce and what child is worthy of birthing.
For just thousands of dollars more, women going through in vitro fertilization can later choose to have a certain gender with perfect vision, a great heart, a natural ability for sports, and being able to avoid diseases (Angelle). Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis was first inaugurated in 1990. “It has become an important complement to the presently available approaches for prevention of genetic disorders and an established clinical option in reproductive medicine” (Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis). This has come in handy because it gives you the opportunity to create a baby free of health risks and you are able to freeze your eggs if you miscarry or if something harmful goes wrong with the first egg. Designer babies are created using In Vitro Fertilization. Using this technique, doctors can fertilize the egg with sperm inside the laboratory using a test tube. Doing so you can reduce the chance of the child being born with a genetic disorder and the parents can actually then on choose the sex of the baby. In some cases couples have used PGD to their advantage to save one of their children. Some babies sole purpose is to be created to save the life of their own sibling. Jamie was the first “designer” baby in Britain. “He was genetically matched to his four-year-old brother, Charlie, in the hope to curing a rare type of anaemia which threatens the older boy...
In it’s current state, eugenics in today's society is more like a warning than the cleansings of history. With parental consent, prenatal testing is performed on fetuses and the analysis is given back to the parents. Things like genetic disorders and disabilities can be detected from these tests, and give the parents an idea of what their children's lives may be like. If a test comes back positive for a serious birth defect/disorder, then parents that may not be able to economically support the child and give it a good quality of life can abort and prevent suffering from all parties. The problem is that many disabled rights activists have taken offense to this, and are campaigning against it. Disabled rights activists have a problem with parents choosing which fetuses have a “right to live” based on their proposed disorder. However, if a parent simply cannot afford to take care of their child, abortion may be the only sensible option. While it may be immoral to choose who has the “right to live”, is it not immoral to bring a child into the world that you know you will not be able to care for and will likely suffer. Even if a parent has the economic means to care for a disabled child, it is mentally and physically taxing, and not all people can handle the stress of raising a special needs child. It takes a dedicated and compassionate person to do such a thing, and
The term social construction means the reality of the way people make sense of life is by the meaning of their experiences and from this, we can better understand the show Baby Daddy through its social construction of gender by breaking down experiences of the characters. The television series Baby Daddy is a show based on an unexpected father, Ben Wheeler, having to raise his daughter, Emma, with his roommates, Tucker Dobbs and Danny Wheeler, with the help of his mother Bonnie and friend Riley Perrin. This show exhibits several portrayals of sexuality, race, and ethnicity and how they relate to the social norms of our society, but the major social context of this series can be related to gender. Drinking and occupation are the key concepts
In today’s advanced world, modern technology has enabled humans to accomplish tasks once thought to be purely science fiction. We live in a world today where everything is instant and custom designed. Who would have ever thought that one day parents would be able to design their children? Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) is a “process [that] involves taking a 3day old embryo and pulling one of its six cells to test for genetic markers of disease.” (Edmonds0. Although this process is meant to help discover harmful diseases or complications like cancer, the idea of parents using this process to give their children what they consider “ideal traits” co0mes into question. Even though parents have a right to do what they think is best for their children, parents should not be allowed to genetically engineer their children because it can create new social and economic distinctions as well as destroy the idea that everyone is created equal no matter their differences.
Over the years, the social determinants of health (SDOH) have been receiving more attention due to its importance in determining peoples’ health access, health quality and health outcome. The social determinants of health have been described by various scholars as the situation or environmental condition in which people are born, or where they grow, live and work; unfortunately these conditions have continued to affect and determine people’s ability to access proper care.1-5 In other words, the SDOH continues to consciously and unconsciously influence people’s access to most opportunities in life including access to healthcare services both in developed and developing countries.2 This issues have continue to deteriorate in most developing countries increasing people’s susceptibility to multi-morbidity among different age groups, with a slight increase among the elderly.6
The sociological impact that Planned Parenthood has on the community and the lives of its clients is another aspect of the issue examined by scholars. Amanda Stevenson, Imelda Flores-Vazquez, Richard Allgeyer, Pete Schenkkan, and Joseph Potter (2016) conducted a study to evaluate how the defunding of Planned Parenthood in Texas impacted the society, specifically for the clients of the health center. In 2013, the state of Texas decided to exclude Planned Parenthood from being a state-funded replacement program. This resulted in the inability for Planned Parenthood to receive funding from companies like Medicaid. The scholars examined claims for contraceptives, a popular service provided by Planned Parenthood, from two years before and two years after the legislation. Specifically, they measured the rates of method provision, continuation, and the childbirth covered by Medicaid.
Unprotected sex is becoming increasingly common today which brings an increase in the risks of the effects; including pregnancy, social discrimination, and various diseases. The majority of unprotected sex is acted upon within teenagers. However, adults act upon this feat as well. While performing sexual proceedings, you use a condom to prevent the corrupting effects due to unprotected sex from happening to you. In the absence of using a condom, the effects are amplified. Most people are aware of the consequences of unprotected sex, although, the choice of using a condom to protect you during sexual intercourse is still not always the prevailing decision. Furthermore, people may not be fully aware of the serious impacts of unprotected sex and only know the minor hearings of them. The severities of the results are sometimes downplayed by other people who make them seem like careless effects that can never happen to them. They are unconsciously overlooked and only thought of as stories being told and not necessarily reality. Unfortunately by this time though, it is usually too late to fix the mistakes from your previous actions.
Genetic engineering or “genetic enhancement refers to the transfer of genetic material intended to modify nonpathological human traits” (Hanna 1). These enhancements are used to modify human embryos and during gene therapy. There are currently two different approaches to gene manipulation, embryo elimination or genetic alteration. The point being, there is a choice of either disposing of an embryo because it has a genetic defect or genetic alteration of a gene which results in removing traits or enhancing them. There are birth defects and fatal incurable diseases that need to be eliminated. Genetic engineering could pave the way to discover ways to eliminate or at least reduce them. Genetic engineering to eliminate incurable diseases and birth defects should be used because it will reduce suffering and pain for both children and their parents.
Social reproduction is the reproduction of cultural, human, and social capital in society. Therefore languages, traditions, cultural values, education, food security, and social circles are passed down from one generation to the next through Karl Mannheim’s concept of “fresh contact” and through society as a whole. Social reproduction is effective when social structures and equality within society are maintained. Inequality, poverty, and social changes that force society to adapt can impede the process of social reproduction causing what is known as a “crisis in social reproduction” (Wells, 2009). Born into Brothels demonstrates a crisis of social reproduction that negatively impacts the lives of children living in Sonagachi as a result of globalization, neoliberal policies, poverty, lack of adequate education and social structures to pass down capital, and the stigma of prostitution. Additionally, it shows the need for children to make economic contributions to their families that prevent them from leaving the brothel.
One of these moral dilemmas is that genetic engineering changes the traditional dynamic that occurs between the parent and the offspring. This issue arose over the possibility of having a human embryo with three genetic parents which is now possible due to genetic engineering. The procedure in question “involves transplanting the chromosomes from a single-cell embryo or from an unfertilized egg into a donor egg or embryo from which the chromosomes have been removed”(Foht). The procedure itself is very useful for women with mitochondrial disorders but the issue involved with this is that the embryo would technically have three biological parents. There needs to be a real concern about “the way genetic engineering can alter the relationship between the generations from one of parents accepting the novelty and spontaneous uniqueness of their children to one where parents use biotechnology to choose and control the biological nature of their children”(Foht). There is a special relationship between children and their parents that may be disappearing very soon due to these techniques. Children could be born never truly knowing one of their genetic parents. If these procedures continue to prosper people will have to “accept arrangements that split apart the various biological and social aspects of parenthood, and that deliberately create
Prenatal genetic screening in particular is a polarizing topic of discussion, more specifically, preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). PGD is one of the two techniques commonly used to genetically screen embryos in vitro; it is usually done at the eight-cell stage of division. PGD is most often performed when there is the risk that one or both parents carry disease-causing mutations. It is extensively used by high-risk individuals trying to conceive babes who will be free of particular mutations. PGD can test for over 50 genetic conditions and even allows for sex selection if there are underlying gender-associated medical conditions. When the results are satisfactory, the selected embryo is implanted into the mother’s uterus. While a controversial technique, preimplantation genetic diagnosis is one example of some of the good genetic testing can do, more benefits will be furthe...
The Catholic Church is against PGD, for several reasons. They believe, because of their religion, that all life is a gift from God. They consider life to begin at fertilisation, and therefore as PGD implies the discarding
I know that I am for IVF because it helps couples who are unable to naturally conceive themselves produce a baby with their DNA and genetic make up, however I am unsure what my opinion is on PGD. I understand why people choose to go through the process of PGD because it would be extremely difficult and time consuming to have to care for a child which has a genetic disorder and if the couple knew this before implantation then may have reconsidered their options. There are many implications and disadvantages to PGD and the process and how it affects the body of the mother and creates stress within households. I believe the although the cost of the treatment is quite expensive it is worth it in the long run because if a couple were to have a child that was born was a genetic defect then one parent would most likely need to give up work or cut back their hours in order to look after the child. The cost of medication and life-long care in the end can not be compared to $12,000 for PGD treatment and although the affected child may be your own and you love it, it would be a tiring job and the parents would not be able to live their lives the way they had planned. If there is a inheritable condition in the family then I personally think it is good to get it screened using PGD because although some people believe it is not ethically correct, in the end it is up to the parents to decide and I think people need to put
... who has access, and what restrictions, if any, should apply. Because of the costly treatment and failure for most insurance companies to grant coverage for infertility, many couples are not able to have their own children since this is something that has to be paid out of the pocket. Furthermore, even though there has been past controversial issues with the treatment using IVF, it is a safe procedure today—with some complications, such as twins being born—and with the scientific, medical, and technological advances that we have in the 21st century; people trust this method as safe and effective. Everybody deserves to have a family. And for some—IVF is the only solution next to adoption. The United States must recognize the degree in which this problem effects their citizens and see that with help of insurance coverage, lives can be changed and lives can be made.