Couples Cull Embryos to Halt Heritage of Cancer

NY Times ^ | 09.03.06 | AMY HARMON

[Coleus]

As Chad Kingsbury watches his daughter playing in the sandbox behind their suburban Chicago house, the thought that has flashed through his mind a million times in her two years of life comes again: Chloe will never be sick.

Not, at least, with the inherited form of colon cancer that has devastated his family, killing his mother, her father and her two brothers, and that he too may face because of a genetic mutation that makes him unusually susceptible.

By subjecting Chloe to a genetic test when she was an eight-cell embryo in a petri dish, Mr. Kingsbury and his wife, Colby, were able to determine that she did not harbor the defective gene. That was the reason they selected her, from among the other embryos they had conceived through elective in vitro fertilization, to implant in her mother’s uterus.

Prospective parents have been using the procedure, known as preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or P.G.D., for more than a decade to screen for genes certain to cause childhood diseases that are severe and largely untreatable.

Now a growing number of couples like the Kingsburys are crossing a new threshold for parental intervention in the genetic makeup of their offspring: They are using P.G.D. to detect a predisposition to cancers that may or may not develop later in life, and are often treatable if they do.

For most parents who have used preimplantation diagnosis, the burden of playing God has been trumped by the near certainty that diseases like cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia will afflict the children who carry the genetic mutation that causes them.

[Coleus]

...would you allow that if your Jewish neighbor wanted to test his sperm, that it is his business and not yours? >>>

you are trying to make morality relative to your own personal beliefs. You must have forgotten but you asked me my opinion and I gave it. If you don't fear the Lord and you think like the liberals that the 10 Commandments and the Constitution are living documents, then so be it. The morality was etched in stone by God. It doesn't change because we modernized.

If you want the opinion from a Jewish person then I suggest you go and ask one, there are many on the FR, and if you do, you make get different answers since there are many branches of Judaism including but not limited to: reformed, conservative and orthodox.

If you think that masturbating in a cup, centrifuging the sperm then mixing it in a petri dish with eggs, creating a bunch of embryos/babies, testing them for defects, choose the healthy ONE and discarding the 1/2 dozen or so siblings/babies is moral and OK, then so be it... that's your morality, I can't change the way you think.

From the 3rd paragraph:

...That was the reason they selected her, from among the "other embryos" they had conceived through "elective" in vitro fertilization, to implant in her mother’s uterus....

I'm sure glad I wasn't an elective and was born. And what about the others? Frozen for life? Discarded, thrown away like trash? Yep, that sure sounds moral.... as I said, if that's your morality, so be it.

[little jeremiah]

Why 10? That's just your arbitrary number. Someone else will say 100, or 100,00, or a million. Or, like the noted professor Peter Singer, a year old baby if not developed up to his standard of what a human being should be.

[TAdams8591]

WOW, a better example of BOLD NEW WORLD does NOT come to mind.

[little jeremiah]

"He appears to condone infanticide, which certainly puts him out on the lunatic fringe."

Ahem - Professor Peter Singer is famous and influential and teachers many students in Princeton and is honored by acamedicians and thinkers all over the world. Hardly lunatic fringe.

He also considers euthanasia a good thing, as well as sex with animals. And a whole bunch of others stuff that old fogey traditionalists like me and others on this thread consider gravely immoral.

But once everyone gets to determine what's right and what's wrong for themselves, who care? It's all relative. So what if you think (just for an example) sex with animals is disgusting and wrong? Some people like it and so it's okay for them. So what if you think killing useless old people is cruel and wrong? Plenty of people think it'll improve society, so your opinion is worthless.

[TAdams8591]

"These embryos were "conceived" in a test tube and would never survive without a mother."

Precisely the problem with conception in a test tube and very reason it is so unethical.

[little jeremiah]

Here's another tack.

I have a proneness for asthma (got it as an adult, though) and arthritis runs in the family, got it in my 30s and without taking herbs I can barely walk. I also have a "funny" heart which gives me trouble now and then, since my 20s.

I guess it's too bad technology wasn't so advanced a few decades ago so my parents could have culled some defective embryos and I would not have been born since my body is clearly defective. Oh, and one parent had two kinds of cancer; maybe I'll get cancer as well.

What a miserable defective life I have.

[TAdams8591]

"There's no "debate" about it. The point where an individual human life begins is conception. At that SPECIFIC point, a set of biochemical reactions begins that will yield a new, unique human being."

Exactly. At THAT point and not before.

[metmom]

If people weren't messing with genetics and fertilizing eggs outside the womb, then the whole implantation issue wouldn't be one.

That fertilized egg is a separate, distinct human being from all the rest on the planet. It has the full set of human chromosomes in a unique combination. Whether or not it implants does not change that.

How does implantation determine humanness if genetics don't? If they implanted a fertilized sheep egg in a cow, you still have a sheep. It doesn't become a cow upon implantation. What is is is due to it's genetic makeup not whether it makes it past a certain stage of growth.

I'm wondering how you would feel if the embryos in question were not destroyed but were also not implanted.

The same way I would feel about someone who saw someone else dying and walked away to let them die instead of doing something to help them. I'd consider that murder. It may not be considered that in a court of law but that still makes it wrong. Why deliberately create life knowing you intend to end some of it? And how is it dofferent if you cctively destroy it or let it go through callous neglect?

[jas3]

One could make a dozen similar arguments that the specialization of the first neural cell or the first cardiac cell is a singular event. It happens once.

What's the first one that could be called "the start"? I like to err on the side of preserving life.

Well that's the question isn't it? But the start of what? Of life? Many people would argue that an unfertilised egg is only potential life. Others would argue that it requires legal protection. Some would argue that a fertilized egg is a life. Others would argue that it is only potential life. What I was hoping is that you would explain WHY specifically YOU consider the act of fertilization to be the start of life. And so far the only answers you've seen fit to share with me are 1). You have read a lot on the topic and 2). You like to err on the side of preserving life.

But if you are willing to consider that you might be erring, then surely you might consider that if you are in error, and your error potentially has consequences for parents with genetic defects, maybe it would be worth examining your rationale more closely?

And like I said before, your first day of college is a cingular event. I guess you're just a moral relativist.

Umm....huh? I thought you said that you wanted to pick a singular event and then you gave other examples of singular events. I didn't suggest which singular event was the one after which life begins or is imbued with moral consequence, you did. I merely asked what the reasoning is for that one as opposed to the first heartbeat or the first brainwave. Why did you pick one over the other. I have not stated my opinion on the matter yet, and I'm not sure I have one yet.

But I am fairly certain that you would want to revise your definition if presented with a 3 week old fetus that was not fertilized with sperm, but which was due to be destroyed.

Go back a week or so and read what I posted on the Plan B thread. I dealt with a similar situation. I already answered that.

I don't know that the Plan B thread is. And if we are discussing the issue here, why direct me to go read something else without telling me how to find it? My question was fairly specific. Did you already answer that same question on a previous thread a week ago?

Why do you care what I think? I don't think you do. You seem to be a moral relativist just trying to play gotcha. I have a logically consistent position, whether you think so or not. You've read about 5 of my posts to you that were fairly specific to the general case, so how could you get my whole thinking about this.

So I really don't think you give a rat's ass what I think about lesbians, even though it's not a hypothetical. You read an answer to a question, then throw up more situations. Whatever. I'm tired of this.

Well you are most certainly wrong. I wouldn't have wasted either of our time if I thought you were unwilling to share your views of if I knew you would react with such ill will.

At this point the conversation has still not yielded any useful nuggets that might help create a common dialog other than that you accept preconception testing as morally OK. So I guess we'll leave it here. Thank you for your time.

Regards,

jas3

[madprof98]

I could lecture you on the use of the term "shylock",

That would be niggardly of you.

[Coleus]

Peter Singer

[The Cuban]

Thank you.

[jas3]

Did you mention the pedophile priests? Be sure to mention them.

Pedophile priests represent only a small fraction of the sum total of priests and are therefore not relevant.

What is relevant is the Catholic Church's history towards science. It's claims to be the sole source of scientific truth, and it's suppression of actual truths that don't comport with the then current view of the Church.

I can think of no worse authority on science than the Catholic Church.

jas3

[metmom]

Here's the thing: an embryo in a test tube or a perti dish is *not* viable.

In another respect a two month old baby is not *viable*. He'll starve unless food it put directly into his mouth, he can't clothe itself to protect himself from the elements, can't defend himself from attack, and can't move from one place to another without being picked up and carried. How *viable* is that? Where does one draw the line?

[syriacus]

These embryos were not in the womb and would never develop into people unless placed there.

If they are placed in a womb, then aborted a few hours later, were they ever people?

[metmom]

It's no longer the stork story but "we chose you" over the other fertilized embryos because you didn't carry the colon cancer gene.

Boy, that'd make me feel real special.

[jas3]

I think you may be confusing morality with law. There are many things that are immoral but are legal and vice versa.

My question to you was if you consider that people who don't share your views of morality (even though you exclusively are correct on what is and is not moral because of your doctrine of moral absolutes and thus your neighbors views are wrong), might be granted the freedom to exercise their religious views, even though this differ from yours?

Would you allow your neighbor that freedom, as he might also allow it to you? Or because of your views, would you use the law to prohibit him from his free exercise of his own religion?

jas3

[ladyjane]

Why would you lecture him/her on the use of the term shylock?

The word was never used.

Again, why would you lecture? Do you think the words are synonymous?

[jas3]

These embryos were not in the womb and would never develop into people unless placed there.

If they are placed in a womb, then aborted a few hours later, were they ever people?

We covered this already. The answer is YES, they are people, and YES they are in Heaven already, and YES they will be reunited with their parents.

jas3

[syriacus]

According to the link in the article, their aborted children could have lived 40 years or more, before diagnosis.

The parents are control freaks, willing to kill their offspring instead of doing the hard work of pushing for a cure.

Few advances in medicine come from people who consider abortion or euthanasia to be cure.