Self-reflection of this activity

Finally we finished the whole R.P. process! It's been fun, I'd say. But sad and scary at the same time, coz it basically means that we also finish our Junior year!! Well...Personally, I like to share stuff on the weblog, and I think that this is actually a pretty good activity. However, you know...when things become crazy around the exams, you really don't want to fool around on the weblog. On the other hand, it's good to have an assignment that allow us to feel free to write anything we feel in the process.
I chose "Designer Baby" as my Research Paper Topic this time. I'm glad I chose something that I'm interested in. Although sometimes some big words did drive me crazy accidentally. I had fun tho. I wouldn't have known so much about Designer Baby if I didn't choose this topic. That's why i appreciate we have this activity. We can always learn something while we are doing the research. And we have this formal presentation in front of our classmates which makes the whole thing more serious. I like it tho. Give it an extra formal touch to the project! I enjoy the whole process, and glad that we pull it off at the end. (:

Argumentation of my R.P.

With the aid of the advanced technology, people now can turn a dying child into a healthy one. The geneticists can help people select the perfect embryo to become a savior or a cure. However, this is far more complicated than it looks like. There are risks in the procedures, and it also relates to ethical problems and child’s psychology. Therefore, we should not legalize this practice.

Works cited (Updated)

BBC NEWS. 21 July 2003. BBC News Network. 19 March 2007

CNSNEWS.COM. 16 April 2002.Cybercast News Service. 19 March 2007
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=\ForeignBureaus\arc
hive\200204\FOR20020416b.html
Naomi, Katherine. Psychoogic Functioning of Sibling of Disabled Children. 1981
Picoult, Jodi .My Sister’s Keeper. London:2004.
Spar, Debora L. The Baby Business. Taipei:2006
Sue,C. T. The Effect of Chronic Childhood Illnesses Upon Well Siblings. New York: 1998

Works Cited!!

Works Cited
BBC NEWS. 21 July 2003. BBC News Network. 19 March 2007

CNSNEWS.COM. 16 April 2002.Cybercast News Service. 19 March 2007

Picoult, Jodi .My Sister’s Keeper. London:2004.
Spar, Debora L. The Baby Business. Taipei:2006


THESE ARE REALLY HELPFUL FOR MY R.P., if you guys are interested in this topic, maybe you can just go check them out!

*First Hand Data Collection Plan*

My R.P. topic is about "Designer Baby."
Therefore, clearly as you may see, I was quite confused and troubled with my first hand data collection till I had the conference with Doris last time.
She told me I could do something like a survey in Fu Jen, and briefly introduce people how students 2007 in FJU think about Designer Baby.
That is an option that easily solve my problem. However, recently the daughter of my father's best friend was diagnosed with the genetic disease,Cystic fibrosis. They are currently looking for cures everywhere. I am wondering if I can ask them some questions about designer baby, but as you can see, the disease has already been a huge shock to them, I don't want to cause extra trouble certainly...anyways, I'll see what I can do about this, but technically, I'll stick to the same plan that Doris suggested.
If anything changes, I'll report to you guys right away! (:

late-coming R.P. outline (new one!)

Designer Babies—Babies Born out of a Purpose, Not Love

Thesis: With the aid of the advanced technology, people now can turn a dying child into a healthy one. The geneticists can help people select the perfect embryo to become a savior or a cure. However, this is far more complicated than it looks like. There are risks in the procedures, and it also relates to ethical problems and child’s psychology. Therefore, we should not legalize this.

I. Background: Introduction about Designer babies.

A. Summarize the book my sister’s keeper.
B. Define the terms PGD, ESC and IVF.
C. Reasons people go to the geneticists.

II. Risks: There are some risks about the procedures.

A. Provide two real cases and discuss the doubts about how the two cases got their approval of going through the procedures.

1. The Curkowskyj case
2. The Nash case
3. What if the embryo is not the perfect match?

III. Ethical problems: There are many issues about ethical problems of designer babies.

A. Are we trying to play God at this point?
B. There are many genius who are born disable.
C. Those embryos that do not suitable will be discarded or “killed”.
D. Human beings are regarded as commodities.

IV. Child Psychology: maybe we need to take the child psychology into consideration. Oftentimes people put too much attention on the sick child’s illness, but the healthy designer babies might be mentally sick at the same time.

A. The doctor might ask for the donation from the designer baby non-stop in order to cure the sick child.
B. The designer babies are often ignored. The sick child is always the most important one.

V. Conclusion: The birth of designer babies might be the hope of the sick child, but at the same time, we are taking away the designer babies’ right to live, we really need to think about this carefully.

DESIGNER BABIES human right vs. human nature

I chose the topic -- Designer Babies as my R.P. topic this time. Ummm...what does designer babies means anyways? Some of you might have this question (tho I told u guys in the class) I got this whole designer baby idea outa a book called "My Sister's Keeper" which you probably might hear about it before since it's a bestseller in many famous bookstores now. Anyways, in the book, there's this girl who sufferes form leukemia and was told that there's no effective medicine currently. As you can easily imagine, the parents would never accept this kind of explanation. They then turned to the geneticists for help. Basically the idea was to choose a perfect-mateched donor for the sick baby. Yes, the technology has become so advanced we didn't even notice. We can choose which embryo we want before we put it into the womb. That's where the designer idea came from.

But then, tho the idea sounds so cool and helpful, what we can't deny is that we actually treat children as a cure. We somehow treat them as commodities. Many people now discussing many ethical problems designer babies might cause. Not to mention that there are also some risks during the process or even the outcome, then, who's gonna be responsible for all that? Not me!

Therefore, in my research paper, I'll try to argue that we should not legalize this "technique".and the reasons varied. It could be the risks, the ethical problems as long as the child's psychology. Nobody cares about what the designer baby thinks. He/ She was made to save his/her sibling's life. In another word, they were made out of a purpose, not love. Natuarlly, they might be ignored since the sick child always got all the attention. I think it'd also be an interesting point to explore.

In my paper, I'll provide two real cases to discuss so as to make my papa more "tangible" ! Hahaha...It's not something happens in the sci-fi movie anyways (I just wanna point out that.)

alrite then, just hope you guys enjoy this topic as much as I do then! Hope we all have a nice one then!

"finally i see the birth of r.p."

The other day I had a conference with Doris. The conference was mainly about any problems I might encounter with papers. I was a bit scared to have a conference with Doris. Coz, I was not yet ready to present any workable R.P. outline. However, I was not confident I could hand in it by next Tue. I decided to call for help...

I don't really know it if was becoz Doris was really nice and patient or what. I was really able to just blur out whatever troubled me. EVERYTHING. There I was sharing any ideas that ever crossed my mind. Alright..."Here we go" I thought. Well... actually it was a bit embarrassing to share the ideas for some of them r stupid...but then i thought if I wanna get some help, I have to share what's in my mind first. There we go...Animal testing, Insaurance, traveling the world (It's too subjective later we found.) Then we talked about Rap Music.

Rap music...what about it? Well...It's not like everyone can accept this kind of music and I don't really think there's a kind of music that could be accepted by everyone in the world. So, maybe it's good to defend for Rap music. Rap music's lyrics are always considered "nasty". However, why can't they share their opinions freely in the song. Besides, there are some lyrics of the Rap music r considered positive (e.g. Where's the love/Black Eyed Peas)
Course these r just part of reasons I may put in the paper.

The point is...what troubled me before was that I couldn't really narrow the topic I was interested in down to any arguments. And even if i could, the argument seemed meaningless or more like an option. Through the Conference with Doris, I think the important thing I learned was that I have to offer something to the reader. The paper shouldn't be meaningless. There should be a reason for the reader to read my paper. Ironically, who doesn't know this ? It's just so hard to relate something u're interested in to some meaningful points. (it turned out that all i'm interested in were meaningless!GEE!)

I didn't mean to say so much originally...but I guess that's that...Anyways, that's probably all about Bella Says tonight. Congrats to my R.P. baby! N big thanx to "Small Doris" (don't wanna give the credits to the wrong person haha)

Bella says...

Bella says...

Well...Here I am again.
I'm here again for the research paper of course,
but what's different is that this time I bring some other topics,
N they are:

a.) Rap music (free speech v.s. social class?)

b.) Animal testing

c.) Organ donation (morality v.s. practical usage)

d.) The poor do not deserve the right to be healthy & alive?(The movie "John Q")

Well.....still, I don't have the slightest idea that whether all of these r workable or not,
maybe in the end I might choose totally different topics,
but so far, these r really something I can only think of now.
Gee...hope something interesting might just come to my head automatically...hahaha
Anywayz...this is all I can think of now and apparently,
I abandoned the topics I think of the other day, hahaha
but I think I'll just go ahead n keep the "elder people n nursery" one as DUCK suggested.
I guess I have to make a decision recently, which really worries me a lot...
The mistery whether I'll b able to make up my mind with the topics will be solved......


to be continued.....

About R.P. Ideas

Well......It really took me days to ask myself what I want to do.
Either I couldn't think of any or I couldn't seem to narrow down the topic I liked.
I don't want to do something I don't even like for a whole yr. Gosh, that'd be horrible then.
I think I have to turn in the outline tomorrow, but then I still have some problems with the topics.
Alright, here are some topics I like, but I have no idea how to narrow it down.

a) The possibility of traveling the world

b) Elders&Nurseries

c)

d)



------DESPERATELY NEED SOME ADVISE NOW------