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Some teased her by calling her a freak of nature, others referred to her as a retard, and she did not even register what they meant, because she had Down syndrome; however, if her mother had gone in for a Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, she would not even have been born.
Good health is wealth, but if you are born with a disease, you cross each year with the notion that you have just a few more moments to live. Today with tests, one can get to know of diseases that the baby might have. Moving a step further, Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis allows parents to choose only those babies that are free of genetic diseases. PGD is an expensive procedure currently offered only to couples at risk of having a child suffering from a serious genetic disease. But there is nothing inherent in the technology that limits it to such uses.
Being a eugenic technology, pre-implantation diagnosis and selection is controversial. Apart, from selecting non-disease embryos, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis can also be used to design specific traits in babies. It could also be used to have babies of a particular sex. Parents may someday be able to go beyond weeding out undesirable traits and start actually inserting the genes they want, perhaps even genes that have been crafted in a lab.
These traits may be of a cosmetic or behavioral nature, such as a particular height, color of eyes, what body type they will have and conceivably, even their IQ and personality type. Humans now have power over "natural selection" and will attempt to play God! To get the perfect next generation they will eventually end up setting factories of birth to create a child to order. It would probably become the ultimate shopping experience to design your baby. Then for a society, used to cosmetic surgery and psychopharmacology, is it that big a step? Will the next step be cloning for those who are infertile?
Screening Genetic Diseases
When a baby is born with a birth defect, the first question usually asked by the parents is "how did this happen?" Currently, around 4,000 genetic disorders are known with more being discovered. Most disorders are quite rare and affect one person in every several thousands or millions.
Many birth defects can be diagnosed before birth with special tests through a Prenatal Diagnosis:
• Fetal ultrasound during pregnancy can give information about the possibility of certain birth defects, but ultrasound is not 100 percent accurate.
• A chromosome analysis, whether performed on a blood sample or cells from the amniotic fluid or placenta, is over 99.9 percent accurate.
What is Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD)?
Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) tests early-stage embryos produced through in vitro fertilization (IVF) for the presence of a variety of conditions. PGD does not involve the genetic modification of human embryos. Embryos free of conditions that would cause serious disease can be implanted in a woman's uterus and allowed to develop into a child.
People who oppose the destruction of human embryos in general are necessarily opposed to PGD; however, for some, PGD is preferable to aborting a fetus affected by a medical condition that has been identified through prenatal screening.
As far as use of pre-implantation diagnosis to remove genetic diseases is concerned, it provides much hope to those having lost their family members to the same. Beyond that, designer babies remain a step closer to genetic screening. Gene therapy lives up to its promise of delivering perfect babies. However, in our quest for perfection, we might just lose our humanity. Organisms emerge from a complex interaction of genes and environment. To be a champion you need a particular environment. Will then these designer babies be able to fulfill the expectations of their parents? Will these babies be made to feel like second-class citizens? Alternatively, will they take over the world?
Image credit: [1], [2], [3]
