Designing babies to breed out disability

9 Oct 2012, 3:47 pm   -   Source: SBS staff
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We have a moral obligation to have healthier children, an ethicist told SBS’s Insight. But how far should we go with genetic screening?

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We have a moral obligation to have healthier children, an ethicist tells SBS’s Insight. But how far should we go with genetic screening?

When Melissa and Brad Hunter found out they were both cystic fibrosis carriers, they immediately turned to IVF and Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) to prevent their child from developing the genetic condition.

“Naturally we would’ve had a child with cystic fibrosis,” says Brad on SBS’s Insight program. “I wasn’t going to take that risk. I think life is hard enough as it is.

“Mentally I don’t think we were ready for that in our life, and we want to give the best chance for our baby boy or baby girl, whatever may have been.”

The couple had a one in four chance of having a child with cystic fibrosis. 

After two and half years and six cycles of IVF and PGD, Melissa gave birth to Myles in February this year; a genetically healthy baby.

Professor Julian Savulescu, an ethicist from the University of Oxford, says that parents have a moral obligation to have healthier children.

“If you have a range of embryos and you can do certain genetic tests,” he tells Insight, “you should pick the embryo that on the basis that it is going to start off with the least obstacles in life.

“I do think we have an obligation to try to have healthier children.”

PGD is an advanced screening technique that determines whether an embryo has a genetic condition such as cystic fibrosis, Down syndrome, thalassaemia, muscular dystrophy. Embryos with adverse genetic conditions are screened out and a healthy egg is implanted into the mother.

But editor of ABC’s Ramp Up, Stella Young believes PGD limits genetic diversity and further disadvantages children with disabilities.

“I find it really confronting to have conversations about whether or not it’s moral to let people with disabilities exist,” she says.

Stella was born with osteogenesis imperfecta and doesn’t consider her disability to be a liability.

“I don’t consider the condition that I’ve got to be a bad thing.  I consider it to have really enriched my life, and my family considers it to have enriched their lives as well.”

To hear more about genetic screening and designing babies, tune into Insight tonight at 8:30pm on SBS ONE.

SBS Insight , Designing Babies

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Your Comments

Interpretation

Chris - from Melbourne, 7 months ago

Many in this world would argue that the intelligent, beautiful and genius bring more negative than positive into this world. Too much complexity to life, bullying the not so attractive or just plain sociopathic weapons makers come to mind. If we got rid of these people, the rest may not be so unfortunate. And yes, I know the counter arguements, I'm just demonstrating that meddling in others' lives and attempting to form perfect societies is the beginning of the problem.

don't be naive

adamhayes - from perth, 8 months ago

Let's face it, people with down syndrome or other abnormality that severely impedes quality of life are not beneficial to human kind in general. That may sound cruel but everyone knows that is the reality. For example, a person with down syndrome is far less useful to human kind in comparison to an intelligent and healthy individual. Let's face it who would be more useful, an engineer or a doctor or a person who is cognitively impaired?

survival of species?

mark rolly - from bendigo, 8 months ago

How can you justify using the excuse of survival of speicies when the world is all ready over populated! Seriously. It's a question of ethics, not science. The crux of the issue is, does every new life created have the right to exsist? Perfect or not. Morals of our modern society often get left behind for the sake of the advancement.

NQR

Gimpie - from St Kilda, Melbourne, 8 months ago

avoiding life-threatening illnesses is one thing, but what's a disability? Where do you draw the line? For some deaf families having a Deaf child is important for community reasons. Not being able to walk doesn't mean your brain doesn't work. Down's Syndrome people are utterly gorgeous human beings, unlike many of the chromosomally correct. What if people start decreeing a particular eye colour or nose size is a disability because it's less socially acceptable than an alternative?

Should never ever be done

Jakob - from Sydney, 8 months ago

This reminds me of someone in history trying to make a 'perfact' race Food for thought: There where two babies born in the same hospital on the same night One was a little girl who was born with Downs Syndrome The little girl grew into a loving human being who brought happyness to everyone she knew and as a woman she looked after her elderly parents and let a good peaceful life The other baby who was born normal that night grew up to become Adolf Hitler

People with disabilities have rights too!

Paulina - from Wollongong, 8 months ago

There are some disabilities which can be detected at early pregnancy scans and yes you can use IVF if a genetic disease is likely to be passed on. To call this the "survival of the species" is just unbelievably harsh! What about those people who have disabilities which cannot be detected? My son has autism. It's a disability which cannot be detected until the age of two (depending on the child) and usually is not diagnosed before the age of three. Autism affects one in one hundred people. Are you saying that these people are damaging to our species???? I think it makes us better. It makes us survivors and stronger people for raising them. And they are stronger still for living with the disability. Yes, there are some disabilities which would be awful to live through and some people would prefer to not go through with that. That is up to that person and I am not judging, because sometimes it is just too hard. But I am disgusted that there are educated people who believe people with disabilities are seen as lesser people and essentially cannot play a role in our future society. It just does not work like that!!!

why not?

morthal - from Brisbane, 8 months ago

As long as it's not experimental and proven to work, then it should be done to avoid ANY disabilities. There is nothing unnatural for human beings to strive for the survival of our specie. And the way we've always done it is to use our intelligence/brain.

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