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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.

Slippery slope, indeed. Chloe did not harbor the colon cancer gene, so she is allowed to be born. When Chloe reaches puberty, she may very well develop AIDS or leukemia or breast cancer .. or ... she may end up like the 20 year old son of a friend, dead, from a head on collision.

Yes, the new age process of selective breeding resolves one problem. Who knows what magnificent contributions to medicine her 'siblings' might have contributed, had they been allowed the same lease on life.

Can you just imagine the parents telling Chloe how special she is! 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.

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Slippery slope, indeed. Chloe did not harbor the colon cancer gene, so she is allowed to be born. When Chloe reaches puberty, she may very well develop AIDS or leukemia or breast cancer .. or ... she may end up like the 20 year old son of a friend, dead, from a head on collision.

Chloe's eventual outcome is irrelevant to the discussion about whether her parents have the moral authority to decide whether she should be allowed to be born free of this particular genetic defect.

Yes, the new age process of selective breeding resolves one problem. Who knows what magnificent contributions to medicine her 'siblings' might have contributed, had they been allowed the same lease on life.

Humans have been practicing selective breeding ever since there were humans. It is not a new age process at all. Again you raise an irrelevant point. It is not relevant what contributions any unimplanted blastosphere's might have made to society if they had been born. Chloe's parents were only going to have ONE child. You might just as well lament the fact that the several million of Chloe's father's sperm all swam to no end and died. Think of the millions of souls that could have been great musicians or dancers or mathematicians!

Can you just imagine the parents telling Chloe how special she is! 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.

Generally people don't discuss these decisions with their children any more than a mother would tell her child how lucky a she is that the the egg that was fertilized by the father wasn't fertilized by another man.

And I suspect this child will be very thankful to her parents that she will not have to spend the first few decades of her life knowing that she will eventually die of cancer at a young age.

jas3

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.