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medpundit |
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Tuesday, December 26, 2006Wanting to have children who follow in one's footsteps is understandable. But a coming article in the journal Fertility and Sterility offers a fascinating glimpse into how far some parents may go to ensure that their children stay in their world - by intentionally choosing malfunctioning genes that produce disabilities like deafness or dwarfism. The article reviews the use of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD, a process in which embryos are created in a test tube and their DNA is analyzed before being transferred to a woman's uterus. In this manner, embryos destined to have, for example, cystic fibrosis or Huntington's disease can be excluded and only healthy embryos implanted. Yet Susannah A. Baruch and colleagues at the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University recently surveyed 190 American PGD clinics and found that 3 percent reported having intentionally used PGD "to select an embryo for the presence of a disability." It's really no different than parents who use the procedure to avoid having a child with a disability. It's still an egocentric mindset. Parenting as self-gratification. P.S. For a reminder that those embryoes grow into people with feelings and opinions about the choices that were made for them - read this. posted by Sydney on 12/26/2006 08:29:00 AM 1 comments 1 Comments:
Parenting, like every other activity human beings pursue, has an element of self-interest. At the most basic level, it's all our selfish little genes that make us want to have kids. Remember that from undergrad, doctor?
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