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So there are 2 parts you would need to write for this essay. Both parts Requires MLA FORMAT. Part 1 would be a summary of the story you read and then you would write your opinion/your perspective on the story which would be Part 2.
PART 1: You will need to write a summary of 500 words
(Create Your own title)
Stablish a foundation of What you’re going to talk about. (75 to 150 words)
Main things (reasons/evidence)
-Thesis (what’s the point of essay)
-Support for the claim
-Reasons and evidence
-Context about the author
-Types of support
-Facts, opinions, research, observation
-style/approach
PART 2: You will need to write a summary of your perspective/ opinion of 500 words
Write a response (450-525 words)
-Thesis explain
Paragraph
Support/quote
Paragraph
support/quote
Paragraph
Other/not there.(something we might think the author wasn’t talking about) (something he should have mentioned)
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rights. In the worst case, they could undermine our experience of being part
of a single human community with a common human future.
Once we begin genetically modifying our children, where do we stop? If
it’s acceptable to modify one gene, why not two, or twenty or two hundred?
At what point do children become artifacts designed to someone’s
specifications rather than members of a family to be nurtured?
Given what we know about human nature, the development and
commercial marketing of human genetic modification would likely spark a
techno-eugenic rat-race. Even parents opposed to manipulating their
children’s genes would feel compelled to participate in this race, lest their
offspring be left behind.
Green proposes that eugenic technologies could be used to reduce “the
class divide.” But nowhere in his essay does he suggest how such a proposal
might ever be made practicable in the real world.
The danger of genetic misuse is equally threatening at the international
level. What happens when some rogue country announces an ambitious
program to “improve the genetic stock” of its citizens? In a world still barely
able to contain the forces of nationalism, ethnocentrism, and militarism, the
last thing we need to worry about is a high-tech eugenic arms race.
In his essay, Green doesn’t distinguish clearly between different uses of
genetic technology — and the distinctions are critical. It’s one thing to
enable a couple to avoid passing on a devastating genetic condition, such as
Tay-Sachs.1 But it’s a different thing altogether to create children with a host
of “enhanced” athletic, cosmetic, and cognitive traits that could be passed to
their own children, who in turn could further genetically modify their
children, who in turn … you get the picture. It’s this second use of gene
technology (the technical term is “heritable genetic enhancement”) that
Green most fervently wants us to embrace.
In this position, Green is well outside the growing national and
international consensus on the proper use of human genetic science and
technology. To his credit, he acknowledges that 80 percent of the medical
school students he surveyed said they were against such forms of human
genetic engineering, and that public opinion polls show equally dramatic
opposition. He could have noted, as well, that nearly forty countries —
including Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, and South Africa
— have adopted socially responsible policies regulating the new human
genetic technologies. They allow genetic research (including stem cell
Topics for Critical Thinking and Writing
1. What does this photograph seem to say about human genetic modification? Why do you think
the photographer included a bar code in the image? In a couple of paragraphs, evaluate this
photo’s effectiveness.
2. Do you agree with the point of view expressed in the photograph? In 250 words, write up a
description of a photograph that might work as a rebuttal to this one.
RICHARD HAYES
Born in 1945, Richard Hayes is executive director of the Center for
Genetics and Society, an organization that describes itself as “working to
encourage responsible uses and effective society governance of the new
human genetic and reproductive technologies…. The Center supports
benign and beneficent medical applications of the new human genetic and
reproductive technologies, and opposes those applications that objectify
and commodify human life and threaten to divide human society.”
This reprinted essay originally appeared in the Washington Post on
April 15, 2008.
Genetically Modified Humans? No Thanks
In an essay in Sunday’s Outlook section, Dartmouth ethics professor
Ronald Green asks us to consider a neoeugenic future of “designer babies,”
with parents assembling their children quite literally from genes selected
from a catalogue. Distancing himself from the compulsory, state-sponsored
eugenics that darkened the first half of the last century, Green instead
celebrates the advent of a libertarian, consumer-driven eugenics motivated
by the free play of human desire, technology, and markets. He argues that
this vision of the human future is desirable and very likely inevitable.
To put it mildly: I disagree. Granted, new human genetic technologies
have real potential to help prevent or cure many terrible diseases, and I
support research directed towards that end. But these same technologies also
have the potential for real harm. If misapplied, they would exacerbate
existing inequalities and re-inforce existing modes of discrimination. If more
widely abused, they could undermine the foundations of civil and human
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research) for medical applications, but prohibit its use for heritable genetic
modification and reproductive human cloning.
In the face of this consensus, Green blithely announces his confidence
that humanity “can and will” incorporate heritable genetic enhancement into
the “ongoing human adventure.”
Well, it’s certainly possible. Our desires for good looks, good brains,
wealth and long lives, for ourselves and for our children, are strong and
enduring. If the gene-tech entrepreneurs are able to convince us that we can
satisfy these desires by buying into genetic modification, perhaps we’ll bite.
Green certainly seems eager to encourage us to do so.
But he would be wise to listen to what medical students, the great
majority of Americans, and the international community appear to be saying:
We want all these things, yes, and genetic technology might help us attain
them, but we don’t want to run the huge risks to the human community and
the human future that would come with altering the genetic basis of our
common human nature.
1Tay-Sachs A progressive disorder that destroys nerve neurons in the brain and spinal cord. [Editors’
note.]
Topics for Critical Thinking and Writing
1. Do you believe that in his first paragraph, Richard Hayes fairly summarizes Green’s essay? If
your answer is no, what are your objections?
2. Does the prospect raised in paragraph 6 frighten you? Why, or why not?
3. In his final paragraph, Hayes speaks of “huge risks.” What are these risks? Are you willing to
take them? Why, or why not?
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