Designer Babies.

The 6 thinking caps:

What we feel: It’s wrong. It’s unhealthy to plan an individuals future. Why not let the child just choose who he/she wants to be?

Positive: You can cure diseases by changing the genes of the child, to ensure that the next generation is healthier and free of genetic disorders.

Negative: What if something goes wrong and the baby turns out what you didn’t expect it to be? You cant return your own child. It creates a perfect world. Who would want to live in a world full of people who are exactly the same? It’s discrimination because only the rich would be able to afford the surgery and create the ‘perfect’ individual, but the poor would stay the same forever. This creates inequality between people, because some would possess more skills than the other.

Information: We have to research more on the type of things people can do now, before we jump to assumptions. Right now, doctors can only alter the babies genetics by changing its hair colour, eye colour or gender. However, it is reported that in a few years, people would be able to choose the child’s physical and mental qualities, such as his intellect or ability to excel sports.

Creative/ Alternatives: There are a lot of ways to get those things on the surface: appearance. Nowadays, there are surgeries, coloured contact lenses, and funky hair dyes. Allow the babies to make their own choice when they grow up, don’t decide for them. In addition, no pain no gain, if babies are genetically engineered to become talented, they will not be able to understand how important efforts are to success.

What’s next: more research has to be done. Debates should be held to prove that this is a very controversial issue, and has to be thought thoroughly. It would definitely bring major impacts on our society. Science is given to us to make our daily lives more convenient, not perfecting it. 

Perspectives: 

Personal Perspective:
; What do I think? What do my family and friends think?

In my opinion, I think it’s wrong to design a baby. But I agree to this issue, regarding a baby’s health conditions. Maybe if the mother/carrier has aids or some rare disease, the doctors can just take that disease out of the embryo, therefore the baby isn’t effected.
This is not fair to the child, because we can choose the gender of the baby. Why not let the child just choose who he/she wants to be?
In my group, my group’s member disagree what they do for the child, and they said that it’s unhealthy to plan an individuals future.

National Perspective:
; How does this affect Malaysia?

According to our research, the Malaysian government has forbidden parents from any form of baby designing. “To choose a baby based on its gender, the colour of its eyes or hair will not be allowed,” said the health minister of Malaysia, Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek. This affects Malaysia because if designing babies are allowed, there will be a gender imbanace and inequality in the country.

Future Perspective:
; What may happen in the future? Offer possible solution/possibilities for the future.
In the future, it will become possible for this technology to develop more advanced. Governments should be aware of scientists studying on this technology, since it has the potential to destruct or worsen the balance of gender ratio in this world. It may also create inequality because some individuals would have better, more advanced skills than the other. It would create a ‘perfect’ world. Perhaps they could decide to only use designing babies for helping children who have been diagnosed with devastating diseases even before they are born or curing a child with a long family history of a disease.

Global Perspective:

Countless debates have been held to argue on whether it is right or wrong to design babies. This is a very controversial issue, it could either destruct our society, or benefit it. 



Websites:
Is it alright to design babies to avoid diseases?
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ReproductiveHealth/scientists-engineer-embryos-free-mitochondrial-disease/story?id=10389170

What is a designer baby?
www.bionetonline.com  

Designer babies to help cure sick brothers or sisters.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/4050989.stm

Can we choose a baby’s gender?
http://www.bionetonline.org/english/content/db_cont2.htm

Group Evaluation and Individual Evaluation of the article.

The Project

Group Evaluation

1.     What area of study did you choose?  Why?

We chose the extinction of animals, because we assigned to us. We chose to do our project on the extinction of Ivory Billed Woodpeckers, because we all agreed that they were unique animals and that they needed more exposure.

2.     What did your group hope to achieve?  What was your proposed outcome?

We hoped to aware people of the fact that they Ivory Billed Woodpeckers are facing extinction, by using the outcome of a newspaper article.

3.     How could you critically evaluate the success of your outcome?

We compared them to other newspaper articles to see that if we had all the necessary facts.

4.     What were your specific group roles and responsibilities?  How did you organize them?  Was the allocation effective?

We began our assignment by opening a Google document. Nabilah researched the web sites while citing them down. Raveena organized all information and Jasmine put the information into the essay. We all helped with editing the final outcome, so that all our opinions and ideas were included. The allocation was very effective, because we saved time by dividing the roles and it also helped us work together.

5.     Did your project have enough scope for every group member to play an active, full time part in the group work?  How could you improve this?

Yes, it did. We did a lot of research individually and also as a group, which is why we had a lot of efficiency while completing our daily agenda and we were ahead of most of the other groups. We could have improved by setting clearer roles for one another, because at certain times, all three of us were concentrating on the same thing.

6.    Was the workload manageable in the time frame?

Yes, it was. We managed to finish our newspaper article ahead of time, because we used our time wisely. We spent most of our time researching information to put into our article. The article itself did not take very long to write because we made important notes before. All we had to do was put them together and edit some areas.

7.     How effective were your minutes and agendas at keeping the task on focus?  How did they help you?  How could they improve them?

Our daily agenda was very effective because it pressures us to get a certain task done before the deadline. It also helped us use our time wisely to avoid delaying any aspects of our project. We could have improved by challenging ourselves more, instead of just sticking with mediocre since we were ahead of time.

  

Individual Evaluation

The Group Work 

What have I contributed to the group project?
- I have contributed my researching skills and my other job parts in helping my other team members with the whole outcome.
What would I do differently next time?  Why?
- I would have
What have I learnt about working together?
- that I can get work done efficiently if we work as a fully cooperated group with no one not doing anything or too lazy to do something.
What has been good/challenging about working as part of a group?
- I always have to keep track on what my other team members are doing so we’re on the same track and the same pace to get the work finished on time and in good quality.
  
What have I learnt doing the project?
 
What have I learnt about;
a) Deciding on and planning a project?
- that creating an agenda on a Google Doc is very useful in recording what you have done each time and to save time.
b) Planning and producing research?
- I have learnt that when I am on a certain website or any website I have to always check its reliability so that it’s not just randomly put there incase the information given is not true. And when I’m planning my research I have learnt to only take the important information so that the article won’t be a whole book of me writing about unimportant stuff.
c) Reading and presenting my ideas?
-  
d) time management?
- I have learnt that to manage my time properly, I have to divide the work between my group so that one of us is not left out doing nothing. I would also do how much I can in a lesson and if I haven’t finished I would do it as homework and not wait for the next lesson because that would definately waste time.
What would you do differently to develop these skills?
 
How did I approach my individual contribution?
I approached it well because I think I have succeeded in doing all of my parts as a team member
 
What are the most valuable points I have learnt?  Why?