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.
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“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.
