Think about what Babe Ruth, Albert Einstein, Shawn Johnson and Diane Lane all have in common.
Babe, with his hands gripped tightly around a bat, once made the crowd hush in awe. Einstein was able to easily calculate numbers, mixed with letters, and so forth, in only a matter of seconds. Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson continues to twist flawlessly and flip her body into various mesmerizing contortions. Actress Diane Lane, at age 43, is still as beautiful as ever.
These four people have succeeded in life because of their strong passions, which ultimately drove them to success. Some characteristics may have been genetic or natural. Those traits passed down from their parents, enabled them to be born with an innate ability to excel.
The key word here is natural. If everyone were born with the same capabilities and talents as these four were, then no one in this world would be considered “special.” No one in this world would be considered famous, or be able to run faster, or think quicker, or have better physical features than the other — everyone would be the same.
Not one of the previously listed people was genetically altered as an embryo. Not one of them was subjected to the combined processes of preimplantation genetic diagnosis and in vitro fertilization.
The process of genetically altering embryos using PGD combined with IVF should be considered illegal.
The combination of these processes allow for the creation of “savior siblings” which are unethical in nature. A savior sibling is “a child selected as a result of genetic screening to have some innate characteristic that will help save the life of an existing brother or sister,” according to the entry for “savior sibling” taken from WorldWideWords.com.
By using PGD, we are creating a life solely to save another life. This coincides with the Kantian idea of practical imperative. This idea suggests that people shouldn’t use others in order to obtain personal goals or to seek an unfair advantage.
Parents shouldn’t be using these helpless embryos as spare body parts. Many of the embryos that are not implanted into the mother’s uterus are left to disintegrate or are used in scientific experiments.
According to the president’s Council on Bioethics, “there is no comprehensive, uniform, or enforceable mechanism for data collection, monitoring or oversight relating to the use and disposition of human embryos in the context of clinical practice or research”.
However, the creation of savior siblings isn’t the only criticism of PGD and IVF. These processes combined can also create “designer babies” and ultimately have the power to disrupt humanity.
If all humans were meant to be skinny, pretty, blue-eyed with good hair, smart, athletic, and be perfect in every way, then that is the condition in which this world would already be, right?
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This article appears either misleading or misinformed.
I looked up PGD online, and it appears to be mainly a screening process for potential disease. No genes are being "modified"; eggs are simply reviewed so that the chosen egg for in vitro fertilization is likely to have a healthy gestation and be born healthy. At its most controversial point, a form of it allows parents to select the gender of their child, which is controversial in itself, but nowhere near what the article makes it out to be. "Savior siblings" are also there to ensure a healthy pregnancy. It's the equivalent of having twins who are matches for kidney or blood donations. The second child is raised by the family also, not abandoned after the birth.
Science is many years away from being able to modify meaningful parts of an egg's DNA to obtain a desired traits you mentioned. Even then, do you think Babe Ruth and Shawn Johnson were that good from birth? They may have had physical predispositions to their talents, but I think it was the years of practice that make them the best, not their genes. In short, if the point of your article was that we should not make babies with superhuman abilities, then you can rest assured that we won't because we can't.
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Two things:
First, I don't think this idea of choosing the genes of our children will be an issue. For whatever reason, we all seem to have a natural reversion to creating "designer babies". I think the peak that we will let this technology reach might be to somehow engineer away genetic birth defects. Other than that, I have no desire to pick and choose my kids DNA, and I think most people don't have that desire either.
Second, consider the case of Yao Ming. Ming was essentially "hatched" by the Chinese communist party. His parents were the best and tallest basketball players in China some 30 years ago. The party pretty much forced them to be together and produce a son. Ming was given all sorts of nutritional supplements since he we born and trained in basketball since he could walk. Yao Ming was planned and bred to be an outstanding basketball player. Although it was done the natural way, couldn't this be considered unethical?
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Finley,
My name is Beth Whitehouse, I'm a journalist at Newsday in New York, and in April my book: "The Match: 'Savior Siblings' and One Family's Battle to Heal Their Daughter" will be on the bookstore shelves. You might want to read it. I followed a family on Long Island who chose to have a savior sibling who could offer a bone marrow transplant to their sick daughter. The book also goes into detail about the science and ethics of PGD. I think you would enjoy it and learn a lot, and perhaps change your opinion about whether these savior siblings are treated as "spare parts."
Also, the previous commenter is correct that PGD does NOT involve any kind of engineering of the embryo. An embryologist removes one cell from the embryo and that cell is then screened -- the original embryo waits in a laboratory and is not altered in any way prior to being implanted in the mother's womb.
I appreciate your interest in this subject, as it will become more and more common in the coming years.
Beth Whitehouse
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WHAT AN AMAZING ARTICLE FROM SUCH AN AMAZINGLY AWESOME PERSON
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I think your overestimating how popular this would be and underestimating the price of this kind of operation. If this were to remain legal, its not like every family would start doing it, so stop being so dramatic. lol.
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