JoBlog

You may have heard about some recent cases of parents applying to use IVF screening to have a second child who is a tissue match for their first, and ill child. Up until recently, these requests have been denied, with some parents travelling to America to get the treatment they wanted. But at the end of last month the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority relaxed their regulations, raising many questions about the morality of such procedures.

The term designer baby has been coined to refer to an embryo which has been selected before implantation, for certain favorable characteristics. Up until last month, the only screening permitted by the HFEA was for genetic diseases. They have now done a complete U-turn on previous decisions, to allow embryos with matching tissue types to be selected for their sick siblings.

The parents of these children are obviously delighted to be permitted to help their first child in the only way possible. And many people argue that anything which saves sick children must be a good thing.

I am slightly more sceptical however. Do we have the right to create a child, for the specific purpose of saving another? What kind of psychological damage could that do? And what if the cure was unsuccessful?

Some people have also spoken out, expressing the view that we‘re starting on a slippery slope, which ends with parents picking the sex, hair colour, height, etc of their children. I don’t think, however, that there‘s many people out there who would say that this level of control would be a good thing.

As for the current developments, I’m undecided. Should we condemn children to death, when there is a cure available? Or should we create a child to donate cells to a sibling? I just don’t know.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 29th, 2004 at 11:51 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.