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.

[jas3]

It's a legal procedure, a moot issue. I'm not going to prevent anyone from doing it. I personally know people who have had the procedure. I personally know people who work in IVF clinics. What can I say?? What would you like me to say??? I already told you my views in the other posts. If you think it's OK then so be it. If you believe that God thinks it's OK, then so be it. Some people don't believe in God. This is America, a free country and the procedure is legal. Go for it. Pick and choose. Have you done this already and want a pat on the back? Here's a pat on the back: pat, pat, pat. Create all the babies you want. Keep the ones you like, and discard and freeze the others. Let the healthy ones live and the sick ones die. That's what Hitler and Stalin did. They got rid of the old people too, the useless eaters who produce nothing and use up resources.

If you think the procedure is moral and OK then so be it. What are trying to do on this thread, find a whole bunch of freepers who thinks it's OK? Don't worry, many freepers do think it's OK. You can relax now.

Well it is far from certain that just because it is legal to destroy embryos now that it will be in the future. Many people would want to prevent other people from destroying embryos and even a single fertilized egg.

I don't know anyone who works in an IVF clinic or anyone who has every had IVF to the best of my knowledge.

I really don't know what to think about whether this procedure is moral or not. I can see arguments for both sides.

Needless to say, I've not performed any of these procedures nor am I looking for some sort of strange confirmation for procedures I've not done from strangers on a bulletin board.

The point of this discussion is to explore the ethics of destroying a 7 celled blastosphere. But it seems as if most people, including yourself, don't actually want to discuss the issue, which I find puzzling.

Perhaps this is not the right forum for intellectual scientific inquiry.

jas3

[free_at_jsl.com]

"If they are placed in a womb, then aborted a few hours later, were they ever people?"
Wow. That's an inflammatory question. I would consider any such procedure to be immoral medical experimentation on humans.

[jas3]

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

Wow. That's an inflammatory question. I would consider any such procedure to be immoral medical experimentation on humans.

I took this question to be one about spontaneous abortion, as opposed to abortion by a person who had just done the implant. Most implanted embryos abort on their own.

jas3

[little jeremiah]

Many college students of today are the influential leaders of tomorrow. What young people (especially) see, hear and listen to mold their beliefs and their world view, which influences their actions and their choices.

And regarding Marxism, you don't think Marxist crap influenced the current crop of liberals? The leftist ideology taught in institutions of higher learning [sic] across the land has influenced and will continue to influence countless numbers of students. Where do you think the Clintons got their ideas? They were just born with them? Or they were influenced by their college professors?

[little jeremiah]

Excellent points.

Another point I haven't seen address here is this:

What exactly IS a "superior" human being? One with good looks? One without genetic diseases? Well, suppose one is free from inherited diseases, but still contracts a fatal or chronic communicable disease? Is a genius "better" than a person of average or inferior intellect?

Or is a superior human being one who loves others? One who tries to do good to others? One who embodies the virtues of kindness, honesty, responsibility, self control, courage? Can those and other personal virtues be detected by scientific analysis? Can such personal virtues be developed by good breeding?

I think the answers are self-evident.

[free_at_jsl.com]

Well, I interpreted the word "aborted" as an active verb. I suppose in the context of the sentence, maybe it should be interpreted as you did. In that case, in my opinion they certainly never were "people".

[metmom]

I think the answers are self-evident.

Of course, they are. Just listen to the eulogy at any funeral.

[jas3]

What exactly IS a "superior" human being?

That is a question that will be answered by the parents.

jas3

[jas3]

"Many college students of today are the influential leaders of tomorrow. What young people (especially) see, hear and listen to mold their beliefs and their world view, which influences their actions and their choices.

And regarding Marxism, you don't think Marxist crap influenced the current crop of liberals? The leftist ideology taught in institutions of higher learning [sic] across the land has influenced and will continue to influence countless numbers of students. Where do you think the Clintons got their ideas? They were just born with them? Or they were influenced by their college professors?"

Yes, well of course. But my point is that there are all sorts of wacko radicals tenured at the putatively best educational institutions in the United States. But it is hardly saying much to note that just because someone has tenure at Princeton that he is an extremist.

jas3

[the invisib1e hand]

wow. just imagine what happens when your "genetic score" can be had by anyone from some internet huckster for $29.95.

Imagine the possibilities for class warfare! The leftist politicians will think they're in heaven.

[free_at_jsl.com]

"The point of this discussion is to explore the ethics of destroying a 7 celled blastosphere. But it seems as if most people, including yourself, don't actually want to discuss the issue, which I find puzzling.
Perhaps this is not the right forum for intellectual scientific inquiry."

This has been a fascinating thread for me. I've seen several different viewpoints most of which have been eloquently expressed. There have been many thought provoking hypothetical scenarios proposed. I think the reason that most people don't want to discuss the ethics of destroying a blastosphere is because most people are not comfortable with it. No matter which side of the fence you are on, you cannot deny that the cells have a unique human DNA composition and that they have the potential to become a person. Destroying them means destroying a potential human being and should get just about anybody's moral compass spinning.

[jas3]

This has been a fascinating thread for me. I've seen several different viewpoints most of which have been eloquently expressed. There have been many thought provoking hypothetical scenarios proposed. I think the reason that most people don't want to discuss the ethics of destroying a blastosphere is because most people are not comfortable with it. No matter which side of the fence you are on, you cannot deny that the cells have a unique human DNA composition and that they have the potential to become a person. Destroying them means destroying a potential human being and should get just about anybody's moral compass spinning.

This has been an interesting thread for me as well. Some people seem to come at the issue of blastosphere destruction with their conclusions well defined but without having given much thought as to how they arrived at those same conclusions. I have tried to challenge those people with questions about testing sperm/eggs, parthenogenesis, or the ethics of neither killing the blastosphere NOR implanting it, but rather letting it live until it died of old age. Few people have been willing to actually answer these questions.

In my view, the testing of sperm and eggs prior to conception will be nearly universally recognized as ethical, with the exception of the Catholic Church and it's unquestioning adherents (who represent a minority of those identifying themselves as Catholic), which/who still labor in the Middle Ages.

Creation of healthy sperm and eggs from scratch are likely to spark far more of a reaction, since the thought that parents may pick specific genes for their children will no doubt be met with substantial and possibly not unwarranted fear.

In my view killing a fetus is not moral, but I've not reached a conclusion on destroying a single fertilized cell or a small ball of cells. I don't know if life is imbued with a soul at conception or at birth or somewhere in between (or not at all). But I suspect that since abortion is currently legal, for the time being, in the United States the termination of blastospheres will continue unabated, regardless of the ethical considerations.

jas3

[SuziQ]

Well, we're all gonna die from something. They may think they have kept their daughter from ever contracting colon cancer, but what if she contracts a different cancer? What if she's hit by a car on her way home from school one day? How will they handle that? Will they feel cheated that they went through all that to save her, but still couldn't?

We ain't God, and we shouldn't try to play Him.

[jas3]

Well, we're all gonna die from something. They may think they have kept their daughter from ever contracting colon cancer, but what if she contracts a different cancer? What if she's hit by a car on her way home from school one day? How will they handle that? Will they feel cheated that they went through all that to save her, but still couldn't? We ain't God, and we shouldn't try to play Him.

Of course we are all going to die. But if she contracts a different cancer then they will at least be secure in the knowledge that they gave her the best start they could. That's really all one can ever do with one's children.

If she's hit by a car, I presume they will handle it the same way every other parent handles the loss of a child. Simply preventing a child from dying from cancer is not a guarantee of immortality, and certainly this girl's parents know that. I doubt very much they will feel that they were cheated because she didn't die of cancer, although they will likely feel cheated as do many parent who lose children.

We aint' God, but we still do many things to try to prevent our children from dying. If you saw your child playing on a busy street, wouldn't you try to save him, or would you argue that it is God's will that the child be struck by a car?

Different people answer that question differently. Christian Scientists believe that their children should be left entirely in the hands of God and refuse all medical care.

But others feel that children should be given every possible chance and view that selecting an embryo without a terminal genetic defect is morally equivalent to giving a sick child a life saving medicine.

I can't say that I agree that selecting an embryo without a terminal defect is "playing God". But I'm not sure that killing a blastosphere is entirely without consequence either.

jas3

[lentulusgracchus]

...you are not exactly projecting scintillating intellect either which probably explains everything just fine.

All I'm projecting to you is that go out the way you lived.

See you down the road.

[linda_22003]

"I do have a responsibility for helping destroy the system that created them"

Do you have a plan for ending IVF in the United States?

[linda_22003]

"your first day of college is a cingular event."

You mean, that's when most kids get cell phones? :)

[8mmMauser]

Pinged from Terri Dailies

8mm

[Wonder Warthog]

"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. The division from one to two cells is a singular event; it happens once."

More sophistry. None of these events would happen without the INITIATING event---the triggering of the growth of an individual human by the union of egg and sperm.

"So no fertilization = no moral consqeuence in your book? I'm sure can't be the whole picture. At what point does an unfertilized but still dividing egg deserve protection and why?"

And yet MORE sophistry. The "whole picture" is whether or not human life is to be valued and protected, no matter WHAT the phenomenon is that initates the process that will lead to that specific unique human---be that process the union of egg and sperm (which is the only process we have available today) or the injection of a cocktail of chemicals into an egg cell.

I'm on the side that says "human life has value and should be protected". You're on the side that says murder is OK if the result helps someone else.

[orionblamblam]

> I'm not talking about some ridiculous argument of being put in a human hostile environment.

Yes, you are. Hello? Test tube? Not capable of supporting the development of an embryo.

> The argument of the baby's being to *survive on its own* is a pretty weak one.

We're not talking about a *baby*. We're talking about less than a dozen cells.