Debates, and Babies, and DNA. Oh my!

Should parents be allowed to change their kids DNA? My vote is no. Definitely not. Not unless it’s the only way to cure a disease and even then it’s incredibly risky. And of course, I will be hit with a wave of “why?”’s from my fellow classmates. Why? Because DNA is shuffled together in a very specific order. If you were to change just one section, it could cause a mutation in the genes, which in turn would cause issues in DNA replication and transcription, and then amino acid chains wouldn’t be put together correctly. This is something we were discussing in Science class, what, today? Plus, if you were to change the child’s DNA you would have to change it when the child is still a single cell (i.e. up to 24 hours after conception, as the cell will ball and grow into just a few cells after this point very quickly. [Source: http://www.webmd.com/baby/guide/understanding-conceptionC]). Again with a why? Well, after the single cell divides into multiple cells, it becomes harder and harder to change the DNA in every single cell. If you don’t change every single cell then there is a likely chance that the child will be born with a birth defect or, that the child won’t be born at all as the other cells of the embryo reject the one cell with the different DNA. And since the cells are specialized for different jobs when they form the hollow ball, this could cause a heart or the lungs of the child to be rejected by the rest of the body because the other cells simply don’t recognize them as from the same person. If you REALLY want to determine exactly how your child looks, and all that jazz, you might be better off with in vitro fertilization.
Also, in the realm of opinion. I would think that deciding how your kid looks takes some of the fun and surprise out of all of it. Have you ever had a family member get pregnant? Be it an Aunt or a sibling, you always sit around wondering what your new cousin/niece/nephew will look like. “Will he/she look like Aunt____? or more like Uncle____? Will they like the same things I do? Will I get to babysit them?” etc. And I know from experience. My Aunt had a baby fairly recently and all we did for weeks before her daughter was born wondering about her, what she was gonna be like.

The Subject We All Want To Step Far Away From

Rebuttal to Yazen, Adralyn, and Beatrice’s opening statement:

You say that because babies are being aborted in the United States, that means that less people will be able to adopt. You say that because babies are being aborted, couples who otherwise would be infertile are not able to have children because babies aren’t being put up for adoption anymore. But what about the hopeless babies and children in Africa who probably won’t live pass ten years old? What about the babies in China? What about the babies all over the world?

If a couple wants a baby but they are not able to find the right one in America because young mothers are having abortions, they should seriously consider adoption from other countries. If you are not willing to travel to another country to adopt a baby, you’re just lazy. And the argument of not having enough money cannot be used because a) if you’ve been saving up to adopt a child, you should be able to save up enough for travel OR b) there are plenty of programs and organizations out there that would be very happy to help you with that. If you aren’t willing to work enough to save up the money or find a good organization, then you are not ready to be a parent.

You question whether or not the baby can feel pain when it is being aborted. At the time of abortion, a ‘baby’ is no more than an embryo or fetus. A tiny sack of cells. You might say... a fetus is still a tiny baby, just not yet developed, and if humans can feel pain, then so can fetuses, right? No. Humans feel pain because of individual cells called nerve endings- cells themselves do not have nerve endings, because nerves themselves are cells. Therefore, a fetus or embryo that is barely even visible and has not yet developed nerve cells so it will not and cannot feel pain. Also, at one point you talking about how risky an abortion would be later on in a pregnancy, and you acted as though we would fight for that to be OK. Having an abortion after three months is not safe for the mother, and at that point the fetus or embryo probably would be turning into something like a human baby. So no, we are not supporting having an abortion after three months. We are not immoral.

Just as well, your sources are unreliable. Yahoo!Answers is a website where one person asks a question and another person answers it- as in anyone can answer it. Someone who is completely and totally wrong in what they think is right could answer it. Yahoo!Answers is made up of human opinions, not facts. Your source is therefore invalid.

Some quotes from your opening statement:

“Killing a human being is illegal in the United States.” A fetus or embryo technically is not a human being. In one of the first stages of pregnancy, the ‘baby’ looks like a small chicken. Having an abortion is not killing a baby- it’s killing a pregnancy. Stopping the pregnancy before it goes too far and the fetus or embryo really does start to resemble a human.

“The pro might say ‘Well it is her choice if she doesn't want the baby’ but if that was you who were in the woman’s stomach, would you like her to take you out and don't even care about you just kill you because all she thinking about is herself?” If a baby has a severe physical disorder like Down Syndrome (and yes this is a physical disorder), or the mother has a horrible defect in her womb that would cause both mother and child to die during birth, I think she should be thinking about the baby and herself.

“Teens today feel as if they can have sex without the right protection and run and get an abortion because we let them. They feel they do not have to raise that child that they have created to bring in the world. They look at abortions as a way out.“ And they’re completely right, too. A teenager should not be having a baby. Giving birth has been known by the female world as being extremely painful and exhausting. A preteen or teenager should not be going through something as physically and mentally traumatic. Also, a preteen or teenager would have a more difficult time with life and school if they had to take care of a baby at the same time. A lot of teens who had a baby would most likely end up dropping or failing out of school. Then, when they hadn’t even finished high school, the mother would go through life with a baby they couldn’t raise as well as they could have if they’d gone to college first.

“GOD has created that child. GOD has personal blessed you to conceive his child in you. Why would you destroy what GOD has placed inside you”  This is very, very religious. As we’ve already stated before, religion cannot be used in this kind of argument because not everyone believe in God or the Bible. Not everyone agrees that God created everything on Earth. Not everyone agrees that God has blessed you with a child. The US Constitution (as we’ve already said before) says that everyone in America has Freedom of Religion- you can’t make a law against abortion on a religious basis because that would clearly be infringing on the rights of the people.

She chose to lay down with the boy or man of her choice to have unprotected sex...” Not every teenager in this world knows about the consequences of sex. Not every teenager knows that when you have sex you’ll end up with a baby in your womb. In fact, a lot of teenagers still to this day think that they will not get pregnant after the first time of having sex. Also, not every teenager chooses to have sex. Rape is something that happens every day- whether it’s date rape or not. So, actually, not every girl chose to lie down with that boy or man. Maybe that boy or man chose for her.