Analyzing Message in "Extremely Hopefully and Incredibly Freaked Out: How We Feel About Designer Babies."

Using information from A Students Guide about rhetorical analysis, I am going to analyze the messages that the author, Nick Stockton, is conveying through the text. 

1. These are two of most relevant things Stockton is trying to convey.

• move the readers to feel a certain way
• express an idea or opinion

Stockton is trying to simultaneously invoke fear and hope, and provoke thought in his readers. Hope for the possible medical advances that can be made in getting rid of incurable hereditary diseases, but fearful of the potential to completely alter the genetic makeup of a baby before it is born. Within these emotions and mentalities, he has his own specific opinion. He displays his feelings about genetic editing and the trend of designer babies through rhetoric. 

2. All of the ideas applied to Stockton and the text, so I chose two more of the ideas that he is trying to include in his message. 

• reflect on a topic
• advocate for change

Stockton incorporates past events and looks at them to compare and contrast them against the current issue of genetic editing. In this sense he is trying to reflect on the issue by looking at similar controversies and events n the field. Then, seeing patterns in actions taken regarding these similar ethically controversial topics, he argues for change. Stockton does not want to see that more poor legislation is applied to genetic editing due to uniformed public and government. He argues this occurred with embryonic stem cell research. 

3. A nuance of Stockton's message is that he is criticizing certain events that have taken place in the field of genetic/cellular research. He hopes that these actions he sees as mistakes to not get repeated in the future. Also, this same critical tone applies when Stockton is saying that the public needs to be better educated. He is implying a lot about the general public with this attitude. Lastly, Stockton shows that he is very curious and apprehensive about how this issue with take form in the future. This topic is not being argued to a great extent yet, but once the technology is accessible debate will ensue. 

Brett Jordan. "Message on a Bottle." 28 May 2008 via Flickr. Creative Commons.