Storm
Genetic testing of embryos (PGD) is not new. Many families have selected healthy embryos this way. But the technique can also be used to save an older sibling from a life-threatening disease.
Tissue-typing PGD is done to identify an embryo that is tissue-matched for a child suffering from a severe disease requiring bone marrow or cord blood stem cell transplantation and for whom no living donor exists. Where no living donor exists, intentionally creating a donor through tissue-typing PGD is among a short list of possible treatment options.
The question can be raised about whether such a baby is really wanted or merely created as a medical commodity to save an older sibling.
According to critics, the wrongness of tissue-typing PGD stems from the fact that it is a procedure undertaken simply for the benefit of another. The embryo is subjected to PGD not to ensure the birth of a healthy child, but in order to serve the need of a sibling for a tissue-matched donor. Conceiving a child in order to harvest bone marrow or cord blood stem cells is unethical when it treats the child solely as a means to the end of saving a sibling' s life.
Although the use of tissue-typing PGD cannot provide absolute certainty that parents will view their future child with the same love and respect as their existing child(ren), neither can it prove the opposite.
Because tissue-matched siblings serve as the best possible donors for any kind of tissue of organ transplant, the fear about future coercion or exploitation on one child for the benefit of another is expressed.
For some, it opens the door for the use of PGD to select for non-medical traits, including intelligence, appearance, and behaviour.
Would you conceive a child who will serve as a tissue donor for an older sibling in order to survive?
Tissue-typing PGD is done to identify an embryo that is tissue-matched for a child suffering from a severe disease requiring bone marrow or cord blood stem cell transplantation and for whom no living donor exists. Where no living donor exists, intentionally creating a donor through tissue-typing PGD is among a short list of possible treatment options.
The question can be raised about whether such a baby is really wanted or merely created as a medical commodity to save an older sibling.
According to critics, the wrongness of tissue-typing PGD stems from the fact that it is a procedure undertaken simply for the benefit of another. The embryo is subjected to PGD not to ensure the birth of a healthy child, but in order to serve the need of a sibling for a tissue-matched donor. Conceiving a child in order to harvest bone marrow or cord blood stem cells is unethical when it treats the child solely as a means to the end of saving a sibling' s life.
Although the use of tissue-typing PGD cannot provide absolute certainty that parents will view their future child with the same love and respect as their existing child(ren), neither can it prove the opposite.
Because tissue-matched siblings serve as the best possible donors for any kind of tissue of organ transplant, the fear about future coercion or exploitation on one child for the benefit of another is expressed.
For some, it opens the door for the use of PGD to select for non-medical traits, including intelligence, appearance, and behaviour.
Would you conceive a child who will serve as a tissue donor for an older sibling in order to survive?
