Oral Anglais BAC - Idea of Progress

Idea of Progress

I'm going to introduce you the notion Idea of progress a notion seen in class. The progress is a gradual betterment especially, the progressive development of humankind. We are gonna talk about Medical progress, with some documents we studied in class. We can ask us what are the limits of medical progress ? In one hand we will talk about the medical discoveries and we will see if those discoveries are a progress for man. On the other hand we'll see that these advances can spark ethical or social problems.

I- Medical discoveries are a progress for man.

Since a long time, the medical field hasn't stopped growing. Today cloning is a way of curing people. Indeed cloning enables to create organs for future transplants, or to preserve endenged species.

There is also the medically assisted procreation, it can help sterile couples or select embryos wich could become donors for a relative. And it also can help detect severe handicap so that a mother can choose to stop a pregnancy like we can see in Gattaca, a film we seen in class.This movie shown us a genetic discrimination. This story is a good example of the possible consequences of selective breeding applied to man.

So organ transplants can save lives or make the life of  a handicaped person nearly normal.

II- But these advances can spark ethical or social problems.

But cloning can lead to the disappearance of a specie by lack of biodiversity. If everybody is similar , who's gonna decide on the reference model ? As we can see on a cartoon we studied, about a factory which produce same humans. Reducing genetic diversity is biologically and evolutionarily dangerous for a species. It question the notion of life and death.

We also can say a word on the surrogacy and medically-assisted procreation. In fact a baby can be conceived only for giving spare parts. Moreover it can be a problem because surrogate mothers are paid,  It's not a generous act but it aims at poor women it can become a trafic. → Text : a becoming business. And embryos can be selecting during early pregnancy. A couple may choose the sex of their baby. It can lead to selective abortion.

Conclusion : So, these advances are very benefical and useful to improve man's condition as long as some laws are voted to limit their impact on society. All of these advances can also lead to genetic manipulations and to a new form of discrimination based on health. It can also lead to a trafic, for example organ trafic. People can be paid to give body parts of blood. → Vidéo : Chinese boy

These are the limits of medical progress.

No « mad » doctor should be allowed to carry out unethical experiments.

No trafic of body parts, including embryos should be possible.

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