Screening for Trouble
The wonders of modern medicine can often be a blessing, but sometimes our advances seem too close to sci-fi for comfort. When these advancements get down on the embryonic level, it's both exciting and concerning. Maybe you wouldn't pick and choose your child's gender or eye color -- but would you use embryonic screening to prevent passing on genetic indicators for disease such as cancer? On the Hot Topic: Designer Babies message board there are no shortage of opinions on this news story that details two couples who are set to be the first to screen embryos for a deadly breast cancer gene.
"I think the ONLY time I would even consider this sort of selection process ethical is if we're talking about screening for a condition that offers absolutely zero chance of a productive, viable life.""I'm absolutely opposed to this. I can see the thinking and in some respects understand where it comes from, but we're traveling down a slippery slope, IMO. It's just way too close to playing God to me. Of course, people used to say this about IVF, too."
"People die - and while it's not an overly happy thing to think about, it happens. If we keep on developing more and more ways to stop this, or at least prolong it, what will happen to us as a civilization? I know that's looking a lot further ahead than most people do, but my point is this...at some point in the future, are humans going to live to be in their hundreds?"
Would you take advantage of this screening if it were available to you? Do you think the benefits outweigh the potential for abuse? Or is this just pushing the ethical boundaries of where our reach should go? Jump in and share your opinions on this very delicate debate.
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No way would I use this. I think it's a slippery slope towards screening for ALL imperfections, seeming or real. Plus, it adds credence to what Hitler strived to do in his lifetime, and nobody wants to validate that twisted viewpoint.
Thank you for the great post!
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it would be one thing, to me, to take something that would prevent the gene from being passed on from the mother, and I'd even say it could be added to the screenings for those going through IVF if they requested it, but the line gets so fuzzy so fast when you start talking about medical eithics... I'm not sure we really want to start down that path. First we screen for all the "bad" diseases, then we screen for possibly "bad" traits (correct eye problems, etc.) then we start screening for hair that matches the mother's coloring or whatever and pretty soon you're creating a made-to-order baby. Society becomes full of beautiful people who look down on the ones that weren't pre-screened... and pretty soon we'll start conditioning people to make everybody the same, and we'll end up like Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron". It scares me, what we might do.
I'm on the fence with this. I'm not sure *I* would ever do it but I wouldn't judge someone for doing it. I voted for stem cell research in my state so I guess I lean toward more of doing away with the threat of cancer with screening.
Will we only be satisfied when we have screened out every possible imperfection? Then what's next? This is all very frightening science. I'd rather see more funding put into fields of study for cures.
Whatever happened to just letting God take his course?
Seems an awful lot like playing God. I'm uncomfortable with screening for something that has a successful cure rate.
Aren't vaccinations playing God? How many of us had our children vaccinated? That's prolonging life. I would love to see advances in keeping babies healthy as they grow older. I think this is a fantastic idea.
It's the beginning of the end if we do this. Children can grow up wondering how many of their siblings were killed and we can look around like we're in some science fiction movie and wonder which children are 'perfect' and which aren't. Insurance companies will have fun with this too.
How in the world does this have anything to do with vaccinations? I don't even get that one.
As the mom of a genetically imperfect child, I thank God, because that's who really has ultimate control, for that child, imperfections and all. How many of us wouldn't be here had this science been available 20,30,40+ years ago?
I disagree with genetic screening to create the perfect child in so much as eye color, hair color, etc. But if some genetic diseases could be eliminated through this process I'm not sure I would question that.
I think it is playing God and we should stay away from it.
To the person who mentioned vaccinations: The difference is with vaccinations we're preventing diseases, with this we would be killing embryos/babies/human life because they are imperfect. Big difference.
I have family who have survived breast cancer and haven't suffered from it for more than 20 years - should they have been destroyed before just because they got breast cancer in their 40s? Even if they had died from the disease, they still had 40+ years of wonderful, happy, healthy lives, during which time they greatly contributed to society through teaching, medicine, and literary works, not to mention the things their children, all doctors, are doing with their lives....
Boy, this is a tough one. I would see it as a case-by-case sort of issue rather than a blanket right/wrong.
If there were a marker for a fatal disease that nearly always kills in childhood? That might be a different case from the possiblitity of getting cancer sometime later in life. I think it's hard to come up with black and white rules. I'd leave the decision up to the individual parents involved. Interesting question, though.