Biotechnology and the Manipulation of DNA

This week in Biology, we've begun a unit on Biotechnology. This branch of biology uses technology to "enhance" life. They use fancy devices to better understand, read, and manipulate DNA. I most certainly do not like the concept of manipulating DNA and do not feel comfortable doing such. Next week, our class will be manipulating the DNA of bacteria and I'm a little concerned about what this may entail. I believe that nature should be left as it is. Humans play God a little too much already in Western society, and the fact that Biology students are going to be manipulating the structure of life, DNA, freaks me out. I'm tempted to raise the question in my class of whether or not manipulating DNA is morally just and ethically okay. I know we will be discussing and debating the ethics of cloning later on, but I feel that the manipulation of a living bacterium is controversial enough in itself.

At this point, I don't feel like I really grasp what manipulation includes. I read a section about it in my textbook last night, and it appears that there are these "restriction enzymes" in certain types of bacteria that break the DNA of viruses that infect it, to protect against disease. Scientists transfer these enzymes into other organisms to stop certain parts of DNA from working. I have yet to figure out what they are stopping from occurring. Messing with DNA is a huge deal, regardless of the size of the life we're dealing with. Bacteria is small, yes, but it is still life. Violating natural DNA processes of life in a high school Biology class seems enormously controversial to me, especially considering I'm taking the class and will be graded on my manipulation of DNA. I'm surprised my teacher hasn't yet brought up in detail the controversy that this sort of science entails.

I wonder if any of the other students in my class are questioning this topic, though I doubt it. It seems to me that many high school students, especially sophomores (which make up the majority of my Bio class, though I am a junior), have not yet begun evaluating their own set of beliefs, principles, and ideas. Sure, they know what their values are from the basics they have been taught growing up, but have they begun applying these concepts to their lives (aside from the decision not to steal or kill or do things they know are wrong)? Are they conscious of their own materialism, or that of others, and their own feelings about it? Do they truly question the ideas our society deems "normal" to compare and evaluate them to their own principles and morals? Though these topics are not the manipulation of DNA, they are things that should concern one's morals.

I hope that before I find myself in a situation where I have to transfer DNA of one organism to another, thus changing the way nature intended it to be, I will feel comfortable understanding what it means, how it affects the organism, and will know that the controversy of that action has been thoroughly discussed, questioned, and debated among the students performing the task.