Essays on Human Reproduction

The concepts presented in the film, Gattaca are not entirely fictional. Advances in science and technology have presented some exceptional cures and treatments for the human species. There are numerous discoveries and inventions that have made the quality of one’s life better than what was once possible. However, along with the numerous phenomenal breakthroughs in medicine, there are also some developments that come into question as unethical. The premise of the movie was structured around genetic engineering of embryos’ to be designed into the perfect human based on the requests of the parents-to-be. The main character Vincent was ...

Historical Background

Despite gender selection going back to our earliest societies, the history of gender selection in human embryos is relatively short. Gender Identification was first made possible in the 1970’s with the advent of technologies such as chorionic villus sampling (CVS) combined with ultrasound. This early method of sperm sorting has an average cost today of $400-600 More recently in the 1990’s the ability to reliably sex embryos for in vitro fertilization (IVF) has been the basis of the media focus on gender selection in human embryos. In 1995 clinical trials to achieve FDA approval, of this second ...

Introduction and thesis statement

The gestational mother should not be granted a right to co-parent a child in a situation of surrogacy. Surrogacy refers to an arrangement whereby a surrogate mother gives birth to a child with an intention to give it out to the intended mother (Söderström-Anttila et al. 261). Various key factors culminate to the engagement of such a partnership. Infertility and obstetric complications are among the common elements. Surrogacy can be traditional or gestational. The former implies that the begotten child is biologically related to the surrogate mother whereas the latter means that the child is biologically related ...