Pre-natal Genetic Screening
...s the results are incorrect and lead parents to think their child has a disease when he or she really does not. Also, by the time the screening is done it is too late and nothing can really be done for the child. G. Hermeren said “The harm of screening might include raising anxiety, changing people’s self-image and paving the way for stigmatization and genetic discrimination.” As you can see from G. Hermeren’s quote, the decision a parent of an at risk child must make as to whether or not they feel having their child screened is a difficult process and requires a lot of time and research. Unlike neonatal screening, Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is a form of prenatal diagnosis that is used to check embryos that may be carrying a serious genetic disease. In this procedure the eggs are removed and are fertilized outside of the uterus and the eggs that do not have a genetic disease are placed back into the uterus. Thus far PGD has been applied to a wide variety of diseases, both in single gene disorders and chromosomal abnormalities such as cystic fibrosis, down-syndrome, fragile X syndrome and so on. According to Sozos J. Fasouliotis and Joseph G. Schenker “PGD is to provide couples at risk with the option and assurance of selectively having an unaffected child, in cases of an unacceptably high risk for a defective child.” From an ethical point of view, the advantage of PGD is that it does not involve the implantation of defective embryos, but it also leads towards the possibility of eugenics. There has been a lot of controversy concerning PGD because of the issue of selective abortion. According to the article male eggs are each more prone to getting a disease than female eggs. This contributes to gender selection. Some of the arguments against selective abortion deal with whether or not people believe the fetus to be real human-being or whether or not it should have equal fundamental human rights. PGD also has a very low birth of 20% so the chance a woman has of getting pregnant is not very good. There is a lot for parents and doctors to consider. A question that may be running through most parents heads would probably be the question of what would be best for their child. Should they save the child of its pain by taking away its chance of experiencing life in the real world, or should they spare the child’s life and allow it to venture out into the world...