Posted on 09/03/2006 1:55:46 PM PDT by 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 mothers 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Perhaps to an alchemist. Like you.
Distinction without a difference alert.
So what's your stand on capital punishment? Just wondering.
It's only eight cells in a petri dish. It's only a small "fetus" (ie unborn human baby). It's only a defective baby who won't live anyway. It's only a sick child who will have no quality of life. It's only a mentally ill person who has no enjoyment of life. It's only a retarded person who can't care for himself. It's only an elderly person who has no future ahead anyway. It's only a sick elderly person who can't care for herself.
It's only a Jew. It's only a Christian. It's only a native. It's only a (fill in the blank).
>> Some people on this thread believe that the 8 celled
>> embryos have a soul and therefore cannot not be
>> destroyed without moral consequence.
> Yet I don't see them lining up for implantation.
I wonder where the notion that the soul is created as soon as an egg is fertilized comes from. An embryo which is only an 8 cell blastosphere still has the potential to split into identical twins. So where does the extra soul come from? Did God place two souls in the single blastosphere knowing that it was going to split later? Or does he add the second soul after the blastosphere splits in two? Or does he not add any souls until later in fetal development? Or maybe identical twins (but not fraternal twins) share a single soul?
Many pregnancies start out with dual embryos, but one of them vanishes very early on. What happens to the vanished twin's soul in that case? Do the vanished twins have a soul that goes to heaven (even if it is unbaptised)? Or does it go to limbo? Or is a vanished twin just a collection of cells waiting to get a soul at a later date?
Since as many as 1 in 8 pregnancies start out with dual embryos, if the vanished embryos all go up to heaven, then as many as 12.5% of souls in heaven would be people who never made is out of the few hundred cell stage. I wonder what it would be like to meet one of these souls in heaven considering their only worldly experiences were a few weeks as a few hundred cells prior to having developed any nervous system.
jas3
Wow, that's perfect.
Trite and ineffective line of reasoning. Do you think that a soul inhabits an embryo before implantation, before self-awareness, at conception? If so, what harm comes to the soul by the embryo simply not implanting, the cells dying a natural death? The soul moves on, the human doesn't suffer.
What is your position on what is a soul, how it comes into being, how it leaves the body, etc. And where are you getting this info? Rome?
That's the question the anti-birth control crowd hates to answer. Their reasoning starts to unravel, entwining itself with poorly reasoned theology with little Biblical basis. If you keep poking them, they'll swarm from the hive!
I don't base by thoughts on birth control or fertility medicine on when a soul inhabits a body. I find it amusing that one of the people who really liked and popularized this soul argument was Bill Clinton when justifying his veto of the partial-birth abortion ban.
>> Here's the thing: an embryo in a test tube or a perti dish is *not* viable.
> Perhaps to an alchemist. Like you.
Ah. The Lame Ad Hominem. The sure sign of someone lacking a rational arguement.
Tell you what, Ace: point me towards evidence of an embryo fertilized in a petri dish or test tube and *raised* in said bit of glass and finally decanted a full-fledged live baby. I'll wait.
Remember, the embryo has to be brought to term in that hunk of glass. Not implanted in a womb, since that is an act of a human "playing God."
>> The decision is not to render it unviable, but to fail to render it viable.
> Distinction without a difference
You honestly think that? Then by that reasoning, your failure to volunteer to have these embryos implanted within yourself amounts to a willingness on your part to commit multiple and unceasing acts of murder.
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.
Catholic Ping List
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Mother Theresa actually did volunteer to take the unwanted ones. No one took her up on it, though.
Like it or not, within two generations it will be the minority of highly "imperfect" naturals who are regarded with pity by everyone else.
You can't be pro-life while supporting the act of destroying living embryos. Life begins at conception, and it must be protected.
Gee, thanks for the false dilemma. I said earlier that I base my arguments on my study of human development and embryology and the premise that murdering humans is wrong.
So maybe you believe murdering humans is ok in some cases, such as when they're realy small.
And probably within two generations, this will be a moot argument as we're having our heads cut off.
Well, sure he (or she) does. In his opinion you are not pro-life. Actually, in many people's opinion, you are not pro-life.
Just because you don't believe life begins at conception but begins at implantation, does not make it so.
You have a case of relativism. Your "truth" is relative to what you seem to believe.
What were those eight cells in the petri dish eventually going to be?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.