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.

[ladyjane]

And on another thread, posted by FormerACLU member:

"I especially like the part where the shyster and his self-admitted moron client are also suing the American Bar Association,..."

Another opportunity to lecture.

[jas3]

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?

But these cells are not dying anymore than a child is dying when he ages and dies of old age. These cells may eventually die of old age, but they like all other cells will have lived a full life. Nobody is murdering them any more than a person who dies of old age is murdered by his parents, since they brought him into this world. Cells live and age and die. If these cells live and age and die, why is that murder?

jas3

[metmom]

One of the scariest things about where the world is going is that it's beginning to look more and more like Brave New World and 1984 all the time.

If one can justify destroying a life that is not considered *perfect* at that early stage, it'll eventually reach those worse stages. Once that becomes normal and people get used to thinking along those lines, the next step is a little easier to take.

[syriacus]

Are they ever human if they are placed in the womb, but they implant incompletely, thus never develop?

[jas3]

"Why 10? That's just your arbitrary number. "

Yes, that is exactly why I chose it. 1 is arbitrary too.

jas3

[jas3]

Famous at Princeton is almost the exact definition of lunatic fringe.

jas3

[It's me]

I don't have to "prove" anything.

You see, I have this wonderful thing called "faith" and with that I have no need of proof.

He does not have a right to label me due to his own minority view. Read what he wrote; "you are not pro-life" is a statement of fact; not an opinion.

He can label you anything he wants to. You don't have to "accept" his label if you don't want to. Just like you can label me anything you want to.
It doesn't mean that it is what I am, it is just what YOU think I am. It means nothing to me. So go ahead and label.

[metmom]

If you lament the millions and millions of embryos that naturally die every year (which I doubt you do), you might as well lament the millions and millions of sperm which also do not fertilise an egg.

Being destroyed in a petri dish or being *allowed* to die there, is NOT dying *naturally*. Dying natuarally is not murder. Deliberately ending a life is. When a fertilized egg fails to implant, it's not the choice of the woman and likely she doesn't even know that it happened; that is not murder.

[jas3]

...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.



There are so many points to repond to here, but I will try to cover them all.

I was not suggesting what my personal beliefs were to you. I was suggesting that your neighbors do not all share your beliefs. The Almish may consider much of your lifestyle to be immoral. And yet they allow you to live your life without attempting to pass laws to restrict the clothing that you wear.

Likewise you may consider that if a neighbor wants to test his sperm that it is morally wrong, but legally you should not prohibit him from doing so. You probably would not feel that way if he wanted to eat his children for breakfast.

So the question was: Would you consider that your neighbor would or SHOULD have the right to test his own sperm, or would you enforce your moral code on him via law (as he might also be tempted to then enforce his moral code on you). This question gets at the freedom of religious expression.

You will be very pleased to hear that I don't think the 10 Commandments or the Constitution are living documents. I don't think any documents are living. They mean what they say and no more or less. If one wants to change the Constitution, one needs to amend it.

While there are many branches of Judaism, there are many more branches of Christianity. And for each one, there are people who claim that there version is the morally ABSOLUTE one to the exclusion of all others. Yet we somehow all manage to coexists because of the commonalities between them and the tolerance for views which do not comport with our own.

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.

Of course this is not what I said, what I think, or my morality. I question your good faith in this discussion when you intentionally and recklessly try to suggest such silliness.

jas3

[orionblamblam]

> In another respect a two month old baby is not *viable*.

Sure he is, unless you left him poutside on the lunar surface. A two-month old baby is generally in a perfectly normal environemtn for a two-month old baby. But a sperm and an egg doign their little dance in a test tube... this is *not* normal, and the result of their union is *impossible* to be viable without direct *technological* intervention. Feeding a baby is a perfectly natural sort of thing to do. Using a pipette and a microscope to scoop up a few cells and then implant them intop a womb is *not* a natural sort of thing. It's the sort of thing that would *never* occur by way of instinct or low technology.

> Where does one draw the line?

In this case? When the embryo is put into it's natural environment. But an embryo in a test tube is as viable as *you* stand buck naked on the surface of Mars with nothing but a scuba tank and a wool blanket.

[metmom]

You really put it in perspective.

[orionblamblam]

> 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.

Hogwash. This is a genetic disorder. One way to be rid of a genetic disorder is for no more individuals with the disorder to be born. Harsh? Yes... but then, so is quarantining a jetliner with an outbreak of ebola.

[jas3]

Being destroyed in a petri dish or being *allowed* to die there, is NOT dying *naturally*. Dying natuarally is not murder. Deliberately ending a life is. When a fertilized egg fails to implant, it's not the choice of the woman and likely she doesn't even know that it happened; that is not murder.

I agree that destroying a cell is not morally equivalent to letting it live. But I don't see why not implanting a cell and letting it live it's full life is morally equivalent to deliberately ending a life. The cell will have lived it's full life. It will have been born, aged, and have died. How is that deliberately ending a life? If the blastosphere is alive, and dies of old age, how is that different from any other cell dying of old age?

jas3

[metmom]

I'm not talking about some ridiculous argument of being put in a human hostile environment. No adult would be able to survive those conditions, either. A two month old in any earthly environment would not survive long on it's own. In that respect it simply is not viable. And what's a *prefectly normal environment*? The desert? The arctic? The jungle? They're all *normal* environments at different places on the earth. And how many adults could survive long in those places on thier ow, either? The argument of the baby's being to *survive on its own* is a pretty weak one.

[Coleus]

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.

[metmom]

When this in vitro fertilization occurs, the parents do it with the knowledge that they are going to choose to let one live and the rest die, whether by direct action or through inaction, same difference.

[little jeremiah]

Yes, but you know how many college students are impressed with him and influenced by him? He is extremely influential among the intellect-chew-all elites, who, btw, are influential as well.

[little jeremiah]

Not only pretty weak, totally eviscerated. It's an already dead argument.

If you take any fully grown human and put them on a desert island with no coconut trees and no spring water, they'd all die too. So I guess none of us deserve to live.

[jas3]

Yes, but you know how many college students are impressed with him and influenced by him? He is extremely influential among the intellect-chew-all elites, who, btw, are influential as well.

Well many college students are impressed by Marx too. College students are not a very good litmus test, except for what rock bands are hot this week.

jas3

[Coleus]

Thanks.