Forbidden Games/ Avner Hershlag

Today I plead before you
My creator:
Let me be

I know I don't count for much
I'm just a tiny embryo
The size of a dot of dust
With no brains
And no heart.

But how do you,
Repro-doc almighty,
How do you operate, with a brain and a heart?

All I ask for, is to be given the same chance you had 
To grow up to be someone who makes a difference.
Just because you can read my genome,
Don't throw me away if it doesn't look perfect.
How would you like if they did that to you?
Would you have made it out of the Petri dish?

Do not do unto others that which you would not want done unto you
Tell my parents to resist technology
Remind them they're toying with nature
Make them renew their belief in nurture 
(Even the ugly duckling had a chance).
Give me a chance to surprise them
With a report card, a degree, an NIH grant
A new poem, a book,
A Pulitzer, an Oscar, a Nobel.
I promise to do my best to excel
If you only let me into the womb.
Would the top of Mount Everest be as awesome
If we didn't have to climb it?

I know I'm under the microscope
And your fingers are itching
To apply the new science
True, the Human Genome has been deciphered
But have they discovered the gene for happiness?
And how about the gene that codes for doing good in this world?
 

I don't know what I'll become
But today I plead before you,
My very own Repro-Doc:
Don't do it
Just because you can

Let me be