Intro to Sociology
Article Assignment 2

This article is nearly impossible to read without looking at things through the sociological perspective. Social patterns are changing rapidly and in this article, it is technology that is the main driving factor. A New York based company named “Genepeeks” will begin offering DNA screening for sperm donors before inducing a pregnancy. The screening would match the DNA of the potential father and mother together to see how the two combine. With the results of the screening, scientists can then look for DNA matches with a higher risk of rare recessive paediatric conditions. This new process goes a step further than current services that are already provided. Current services simply screen one or both parents’ genes to see if they would be considered a carrier for disease when combined with similar variants. Genepeeks advances this technology by computer simulating 10,000 hypothetical children and looking for actual disease rather than just carrier status. Anne Morris is a co-founder of Genepeeks. Anne was motivated to find this company because she gave birth to a child via sperm donation and her child inherited a disorder called MCAAD. Her child is still able is able to lead a normal life but she realizes that about 30% of children with rare genetic diseases don’t make it past age 5. Questions of ethics began to arise right away but she assured that the screening was simply for genetic diseases and not for outward appearance of the child. She also acknowledged that the science isn’t exact and that there is no guarantee that the mother will give birth to a healthy child. The first aspect of sociology to apply is family. It is an underlying aspect in this article that is nearly implied yet can’t be overlooked. People still strive to have children and start a family and are willing to go to strenuous measures to do so. Whether it be a homosexual couple, heterosexual couple, or a single parent, it is fairly common in today’s American culture to seek a sperm donation if natural ways do not work. Artificial insemination is just simply another way to start a family in today’s society. The next piece of sociology to apply to this article is values. Values are culturally defined standards that people use to decide what is desirable and good; they give broad guidelines for how to live socially. Macionis lists 10 key values from the U.S. culture and the first one that can be seen in this article is progress. Americans value progress because we are optimistic about what the future holds and the direction we are headed. Some people do say that the bright light of progress is fading and that the future won’t necessarily be better. However, Americans still strive for the latest and best even though some people don’t believe it will make their lives better. In this article people are striving for the latest technology in an attempt to make their and their children’s lives better by applying new ideas. Although the results aren’t guaranteed, many people will still make use of this technology. Another one of the values that are listed by Macionis is science. Americans will often look to science and technology to solve many of our problems. For the most part, Americans think rationally and look for a specific solution to our problems. In the article, Anne Morris ran into a problem in her personal experience with sperm donation so she looked for a solution. Using various forms of science and technology, she came up with a solution. We currently live in a technology based age and science and progress are the driving factors. These two things are sending our culture through a rapid social change. Social change simply refers to the transformation of culture and social institutions over time. There are four key points to social change and they can all be applied in this article.
The first point is that social change happens all the time. There are new discoveries and new pieces of technology that are coming out on a daily basis to change our lives thus social change is happening at such a rapid pace in America. In the article social change is occurring via the discovery of new gene research and scanning technology. This technology was not available just a few years ago and is now available to help solve problems.
The second key point of social change is that it is often planned. Scientists are constantly coming up with new ideas to meet new goals. Their goals will often bring about social change by solving problems in a new way. Anne Morris had planned her start up company with the intent to bring about social change when dealing with artificial insemination. Her company’s findings have significantly done that and may change the way people in our culture go about the process of finding a sperm donor.
The next key point is that social change is controversial. Genepeek’s findings are definitely controversial when considering ethics. Some people don’t believe that it is ethical to choose their sperm donor based on genes whereas others simply view it as a tool to produce healthier children. There is also a question of bio-ethics. Scientists don’t want people to believe it is entirely possible to produce a child with a clean bill of health every time. There will always be people who want the change (modernists) and those who don’t believe that new technology will always bring about positive outcomes (postmodernists).
The last point of social change that can be applied to the article is that some changes matter more than others. Genepeek’s discoveries may be very significant moving forward as a society creating healthy families. It will change the way people go about finding sperm donors and could potentially help get rid of children with rare hereditary diseases. As opposed to other discoveries that are made in the technology world such as video games and entertainment, these findings are very significant to our culture.