That designer bag is SO cute! I have to have those designer shoes. That designer dress is BEAUTIFUL. This designer sale is the best thing on earth! Awwww, those designer babies are so adorable!


……………

Hold up! Have you gone insane?! Designer BABIES?! What in the world! Humans are NOT accessories. You don’t wear them, and they’re definitely not supposed to be for show! So who in the world would go as far as to genetically modify a little human being who has no say in their own life?

What exactly is a designer baby? Well, it’s a term that the media uses about scientists and doctors being able to actually genetically modify an embryo’s genetic make-up to change their cosmetic characteristics. Isn’t that insane? Surely no one would go as far as that…

I understand the need to genetically modify their children for medical reasons. But that’s only because they need it, or else they would be born defected and imbalanced to a point where they could no longer live a normal life, or would have to be taken care of for the rest of their lives. But to go and modify them (I prefer the word mutate, it’s more fitting) for their looks, now that’s ridiculous. You are taking away their individuality, their unique sense of person. If I found out that someone had messed with my genes for cosmetic reasons… How pissed off… I can’t even explain it!

Some couples go through InVitro Fertilisation (IVF) which is basically fertilising chosen eggs with the sperm in a ‘test-tube’ outside of the mother’s womb to reduce chances of genetic disorders, or, they screen the embryos for a genetic disease and only implant selected embryos back into the womb, which is called Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis. These things, I have no problem with, because they’re trying to avoid a bad situation, and might as well subtract the small number from the equation before it is plugged into the main equation, right?

But you know what, that song, “I’m a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world!”… That would come true! We live in a man-made society, have you realized? And wouldn’t it make sense to be a Barbie girl in the midst of a Barbie world? Everything looks like it’s perfect but really, it’s not, it’s plastic, easily torn down and destroyed. Our perception of beauty is already distorted as it is, but imagine with the 'perfect' humans around, it'd be even more disastrous.



Some have argued that this is unnatural, immoral, and a violation of God’s laws. They believe that we are a different for a reason, and to try and change this with our own hands, instead handling it naturally, it’s wrong. Sure, it could start with changing little things, like our hairline, our earlobes, but eventually it would go on to changing our height, our artistic abilities, athletic abilities! The world would be competing at who has the better genes. The world will become even more catastrophic than it already is!

Our technology in the 21st century is advancing, and fast. Not that long ago, there was no such thing as a computer, yet a HAND-held computer (aka a laptop) and a hand-held phone (aka a cellphone). It’s almost as if we’re getting in over ourselves. C’mon, genetically modifying our children for vanity uses? In our society, we want to be beautiful. But naturally beautiful. Haven’t people realized this? Modifying a baby before they are born is no better than getting plastic surgery and claiming to be better looking or being able to do things better. It’s just the difference of being able to see the before and after when you get your surgery. It’s also wrong, the genetic modifications, because that child had no say in the matter, while plastic surgery, that’s all up to you.




I’m all for genetically modifying your genetics because of health risks, but other than that, it’s definitely ridiculous. That child will become ridiculed; with parents who had thought their child not be born good enough for them, so they had to go ahead and choose what their child to look like, like choosing that colour of sweater out of the catalogue. You can’t even trust that, because sometimes the colour in the magazine is so not the colour you wanted. That could turn out the same, trying to adjust your child’s looks.

So all in all, designer babies for vanity reasons? No way! Medical reasons, go for it! My arguments may not be able to change everyone's minds, but at least hear me out and think about it before you kill your child's pride in their own body before they even had a chance.

http://www.bionetonline.org/English/content/db_cont1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genetic_engineering
http://www.ag.org/top/beliefs/contempissues_14_genetics.cfm

Blogs commented on:
Angela Nisce
Rosemary Ku

Oh worlds~

Biodiversity? What in the world is that? Well, think of what the words ‘bio’ and ‘diversity’ mean. Bio, meaning living things, and diversity, basically meaning different or a variety. Biodiversity, to put in simple, is the variety of living things.

Biodiversity is a word that not many people would care about in the real world, where most go on and live for themselves and their family. But in true reality, biodiversity is not just a word, but it is a system that controls nature and affects not only us, but everything living thing around you. Yes, this includes us, too. When you’re generalizing how our ecosystems work, most just factor in the pros and cons of humans, not many sit and think, ‘hey, what about the other living things here like plants, mosses, animals, fish etc.’. But as a Biology student, it’s come to my attention that even the littlest things can affect many, many different types of species.

For an example, an endangered species in Ontario, the small-mouthed salamander; its habitat is being destroyed and altered so much that it can’t adapt to the new surroundings. The small-mouthed salamander can be found in the Peelee Island in Canada, and is found to breed during the spring in and along streams, temporary pools and flooded ditches. When it is not breeding, the Small-mouthed Salamander can be found living from moist areas mixed with pines and deciduous forests to tall grass. The Small-mouthed Salamander is endangered because we humans decide we can just destroy forests, thinking that they are only plants and trees, but they’re also living things with a various amount of species using that particular forest as their home. As humans cut down the trees, the canopy that covers temporary pools of water, where the Salamander breed, is being dried up way too quickly.

Range map of Ontario where the Small-mouthed Salamander can be found..

When we’re using a piece of paper, think about what nature has gone through, just to get you to that one piece of paper. You’ve got machines, machines that tear down trees to first make a path or a road if you will to get to more trees. While tearing down a path for trees, that machine is also tearing down many species homes! Altering them dramatically. As they tear down more trees to cut down, they are creating wide spaces that may have been needed as breeding grounds for another variety of species.

When you think of salamanders, you say, 'hey, what the heck do they do for US anyways?!' Hmmm, well, for one thing, they might not be helping us DIRECTLY, but indirectly. They help us keep the number of ‘pests’ down such as worms and slugs, but more importantly, they are the prey for bigger animals, in which those are prey for bigger animals and so on, and in time, one of those predators may be one of our prey, it’s the circle of life, just as with any other animal.

It’s quite sad, actually. Do you know how much it’s affecting the poor animals? From firsthand experience, I’ve seen too many animals running across the streets at night when they belong in the forests, hidden in the night, not going across main streets, behind houses! It’s quite a scary thought, but then again, I guess they’re trying to tell us something then, huh? Something among the lines of “HEY, you get to take over our homes, our surroundings, and ruin our lives, so why can’t we sleep in your backyard and eat your leftovers that you so kindly leave out?’ Hah, yeah, that’s exactly what they’re trying to say to us.

So stewards of this world, let me think. NO, not really. No, not at all! We’re ‘trying’ to reverse our actions, but I’m kind of thinking it’s worsening it. How many green bins did they have to make so that WE ourselves can be green, hmm? Tons and tons and toooooons of them, that’s a lot of plastic! We are reusing them, I guess…. The human population can be really stupid at times, but I guess God will spare us since it’s out of our ‘good and repenting’ souls. It's good that we're trying to reverse the effects of our doings for the past whatever years, but obviously it's not enough...

References:

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Ambystoma_texanum.html

http://www.rom.on.ca/ontario/risk.php?doc_type=fact&id=92&lang=en http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/subsite/glfc-amphibians/ambystoma-texanum http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/en/Business/Species/2ColumnSubPage/276504.html

Picture sources:

http://www.rom.on.ca/ontario/risk.php?doc_type=map&id=92

http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/images/7139

http://www.maniacworld.com/wood-chopper-from-hell.jpg

Blogs commented on :

Tammy Nguyen

Erika Bautista