Genetic screening of embryos using the techniques of sperm
selection and PGD are sophisticated ways to avoid a
growing number of genetic diseases but they have provoked
many ethical arguments.
An embryo a few days old
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In the United States a deaf lesbian couple has intentionally
had two deaf children by artificial insemination using
sperm from a man who had a long family history of deafness.
This couple deliberately chose to bring a child into
the world with a disability. This sort of choice raises
new ethical issues.
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Scientists are learning more and more about how genes work
and interact with each other. Using PGD it will soon
be possible to screen and select for many more diseases. In
the future it may be possible to really create 'designer babies'
and to move from testing for medical conditions to the selection
of designer features such as height, eye colour, facial appearance
and perhaps even intelligence and personality.
Designer baby or just healthy
baby |
The success of PGD has shifted
scientists' attention away from germ line therapy,
which is the attempt to alter the genes in eggs, sperm
or embryos. Increasingly, parents can avoid passing
a faulty gene on to their child using this type of genetic
screening.
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In 2000, in the United States, the Nash family made medical
history by having a baby boy who had been selected using PGD
to be a perfect tissue match for his very ill older sister.
His sister suffered from a rare genetic disease so tissue
from her new-born brother's placenta was used to restore her
to health. The same thing was allowed to occur in 2001 in
the UK and now many more parents are applying to the authorities
for permission to do the same thing.
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