Antepartum testing seeks to prevent fetal death, especially in high-risk mothers. Thorp and O’Neill (2013) stated that the evaluation identifies risks for an intrauterine injury that may lead to death with the aim of offering timely interventions. Apart from this primary role, could the assessment be of benefit in human genetic engineering?
Although some scientist opines that genetic engineering in humans has positive effects on humanity, there are many adverse effects. For instance, human genetics tend to mutate over time. As a result, the choice of the “perfect baby” may not be a viable idea on the long-term because there is no surety that the baby’s genes would not mutate over time. On top of that, interfering with the genetic makeup, other than removing harmful genes such as those that render one susceptible to certain diseases would reduce the genetic diversity. At the same time, modifying the baby may make the child lose the sense of identity. Cloning means that one duplicates another person perceived to have superior qualities. The question that would arise is whether the donor has more human rights than the clone. As such, the clone would be a commodity in one way or the other.
Moreover, clones may age faster than the biological babies. Such occur because cloning entails the use of older cells. Further, there is no research on how to deal with such occurrences after cloning. Besides, there is also a high rate of failure in genetic engineering, and therefore, it is immoral to subject human beings to such a process. Over 90% of human cloning fails.
Reference
Thorp J., and O’Neill E. (2012). Antepartum Evaluation of the Fetus and Fetal Well Being. Clinical Obstetric Gynecology 2012. Sep: 55(2) 722-730. Retrieved on February 4, 2016 from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3684248/
