Should Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis be allowed to continue?
...re.htm] The woman who undergoes this process has to take some drugs so she can produce lots of eggs. The IVF procedure is used to take out human ova and place them into a Petri dish and then fertilises them with male sperm, usually from the partner of the woman. After about three days, the embryos divide and DNA is extracted from them and used for analysis to find if there are any genetic defects. If there’s a genetic defect, the human embryos are destroyed. About 3 embryos without defects are put back into the womb. The success rate of the IVF procedure is 25%. (http://www.imew.de/index.php/action/article/aid/83) There is over a 90% success rate of PGD, and is 85-90% right in determining the sex of the baby. It’s hard to find clinics that are qualified to perform this diagnosis. In recent research, there were 5 clinics found, 4 in various states of America, and one in the UK. There are 3 kinds of risks involved in PGD: the risk of Embryo Biopsy removing the cells from the embryo, the risk of the egg not implanting, and the results at the end. (PGD is not 100% correct in anything so there’s always a risk that the child may still be born with the disorder.) The good benefits are that if it became widespread, many diseases (over 30) can be reduced, it allows some adults who are carriers are able to have children without worrying if they will have a genetic disease, it can now be done when the fetus is 12-16 weeks old and there is less need for abortion. The bad things about PGD is some people believe that when the un-selected embryos are destroyed, it is the same as murdering a person, so do we have the right to decide who should live and who should be denied? There’s also a danger of the child to be premature, there are risks involved ...