Undergraduate /
"Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis"; Stanford supplement- Intellectual vitality [5]
Prompt: Stanford students possess an intellectual vitality. Reflect on an idea or experience that has been important to your intellectual development.
My eyes snapped open and I sat up straighter. A huge, silent yawn escaped my mouth before I had the time to stop it. My AP Biology teacher appeared to be still lecturing gene expression, for about the tenth time in the past five classes. It's the same process every day: transcription, RNA splicing, translation, and post-translational modification. Just as my eyes were about to close against my brain's orders, my teacher said something different.
"Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis, or PGD, allows the manipulation of genes that transcript the embryo's physiology such as gender, eye color, hair color, and complexion. And not too far in the future, parents will also have the option to dictate the embryo's athletic, intellectual, and artistic ability", he said in the same bored, monotonous voice. Oh cool. Designer babies. I thought to myself. My teacher continued, "It has allowed thousands of couples to dodge some of the world's deadliest genetic disorders. Today, in-vitro fertilization clinics across the globe are offering these services."
At home, I stood in front of my parent's 6-feet long mirror. The girl staring back at me is rather disproportionate with short, bulky legs and a slim torso. Her bushy hair is twice as large as her face, which has its own imperfections. If my parents had the choice of PGD, would they have designed a girl with flawless skin, silky hair, and the hourglass body? Or would her intellectual abilities compensate for her physical errors? All of a sudden, I saw the future with a mixture of technological robots that resemble humans and designer humans that behave like robots. Is this what our world is working towards: a more extreme homogenous population? Isn't the world globalized enough already? While my thoughts might be passionate and scientifically inaccurate, they help me get through the day. It's these thoughts that question behaviors and actions. It's these thoughts that help me look past someone's physical "flaws". They make me a better person and in some ways, a more intellectual one.
