Hi everyone!!
Science is not only about developing and researching. Scientists have to take into account the ethical issues regarding their discoveries and developments. The social and ethical parts are as important as the others and I encourage you to base your papers on them if you feel like it. When I wrote mine, I did focus on ethics, for example.
Gene therapy deals with a lot of ethical and social issues. Some of them are the following:
- Therapy against enhancement
I did my paper on Cybernetic Prothesis and one of the aspects I focused on is how using that technology to enhance our capacities could be unethical or, in the other hand, could help us developing and evolving. The same issue comes up concerning gene therapy. Where can we set the limit? Would it be ethical to "improve" the human specie and therefore entail the introduction in human subjects of novel characteristics going beyond the usual, medical, understanding of health? If we started to enhance our capacities by using this technology, wealthier people would probably the ones benefited by it. Therefore, a big social gap might appear between enhanced and not-enhanced people. The waste of resources might be another issue regarding enhancement.
- Somatic against germ line gene therapy
Current research deals with somatic gene therapy. As you might know, somatic cells are any except for the reproductive cells. Therefore, since the germ line is not affected, all effects of therapy end with the life of the patient, at the very latest. However, gene therapy could be used in germ line cells. The consensus against germ line therapy is broad. The ethical debate on germ line therapy has usually focused on two aspects:
Germ line therapy is "open-ended" therapy
Germ line therapy may involve invasive experimentation on human embryos
When I did my paper, I thought new regulations could solve the uncertainty regarding my topic. Nevertheless, the problem comes up when setting the legal limits. These, in my opinion, should be determined by ethics. The same happens with gene therapy. Where is the ethical limit?
What are your thoughts? Where do you guys think the limit is? I encourage you all to think about this as, in my opinion, it is very interesting. Please, feel free to base your papers in any of the aspects commented if you wish to. Good luck!!
Best regards,
María Vaquero, Spain