Embryo Chosen For Its Tissue Type

Davi Bock writes: "A couple conceived their son in vitro, no big deal -- but they chose that particular embryo because its tissue type would provide a match for their dying 6-year-old daughter. When their new baby was born, the umbilical cord's blood was transfused into the daughter immediately. This just blows me away. Not that it's right or wrong, but that it's happening. The story is at the NY Times, free registration required."

Comments

Re:10 Years From Now.

[tgibbs]

I imagined that the "planned" babies are more the exception than the rule. I vaguely remember one of my parents mentioning, years ago, that only one of their 3 kids was planned. But you know, the funny thing is that I don't remember which one of us it was. I guess it just didn't seem important enough to make a note of it.

Re:Playing the Hand You're Deal (or Rigging the Ga

[rark]

> Adopt a kid - they're plenty available, waiting > for a nice home. But, not, we're selfish. Gotta > have it. And when it doesn't work out, well,
> whine, and try to rig the game.

plenty, as long as you're willing to take an older child, especially if you're willing to take an older child who is disabled, a minority or suffering from the emotional effects of years of abuse and/or neglect.

Don't get me wrong, these kids *need* homes, and I wish more people had the emotional strength required to give them homes, but too many people decide to adopt healthy, usually white infants and then sit there patting themselves on the back about what awesome people they are for giving a kid a chance and that's just ridiculous.

or they whine about how much said babies cost. poor dears.

Re:OK..What About The Newborn...

[krmt]

Did you read the article? They screened the kid for the disease. He doesn't have it. No way no how.

"I may not have morals, but I have standards."

Re:Because people will just follow the trend

[GigsVT]

But a black market can be shut down, and doesn't provide the same kind of saturation cover that a legal market would. Whilst the opportunity might be there for a few couples, it wouldn't result in the same kind of loss of genetic diversity we would otherwise see.

Yep, I sure can't get marijuana or cocaine since they started that War on Drugs. But we are starting to get offtopic, and this is a skilled black market, but you get the general point. Black markets will never be completely eliminated, so long as there is sufficient demand.

My point is, if you make it illegal, it assures that the rich will be the only ones that can afford to fly overseas to get it done in countries where it is legal, or where it is tolerated. This is a pandora's box.

Illegality has more problems. Whats to keep scam artist doctors from preforming a normal in vitro without any genetic engineering, and charge for genetic engineering? Since it is all illegal, there is no recourse for the defrauded customers, if they even ever find out. Illegal means unregulated.
-

Re:partners.nytimes.com works again...

[Ventilator]

but the ned result made it worth it, but still I dont know how "good" this all is..

Imagine you were that little girl. What'd you think? Was it right or wrong to do it?

On the other hand:
Imagine you were the baby. What'd you think? Was it right or wrong to do it?

Re:Sure it's ethical

[Hard_Code]

My god they murdered those poor unborn unicellular children!

Oops...The article says they tested them when they were at the eight-cell stage. I wonder if that makes it 8 times "worse".

Think about the "Old Way" - really no better

[Callon]

The old way was to have a dozen little kiddies so that after famine and disease and war had taken most of them away, you'd still have enough to carry on your precious genetic material.

Hang on - that's not really the old way - that's still happening all the time in 3rd world countries!

I really don't see how this is any different. Having a bunch of kids to maximise the chances of one or two surviving versus having another one (making two) to make sure they both survive - I think I know which I prefer.

They have two - they keep two. What's the big deal?

Re:10 Years From Now.

[Keely]

Did you read the article? It clearly said that the couple had wanted to have other children, but hadn't for fear of creating another child with a deadly disease.

Go rent the movie Gattaca

[cwills]

Specifically the DVD version which has two interesting "special features". Both are clips that never made it into the version shown in movie theaters.

The first outtake is where the parents are "selecting" the embryo for their new son. After the selection has been made, the Dr informs the couple that while it isn't normally done, he could add some enhancements, such as musical ability, etc. so that the child could have an even better chance.

The second outtake hit me even more however... it was a coda which stated that had the technology and practices shown in the movie been availble the following people would never have existed. It then went on to list such people as Einstein, Hawkings, Beethoven, Helen Keller, etc.

Anyway.. good movie

Cheyenne

Re:Go rent the movie Gattaca

[Callon]

Ick! Glad they took those out! The first one is just bad film-making (making the doctor EVIL rather than just responding to societal mores) and the second one is real preachy.

Agree generally though - great film!

Try this alternate ending on for size though and tell me if it sucks as bad as those outtakes (it probably does).

SPOILER FOLLOWS



As Ethan stands in the spacecraft lifting off at the end - what if there had been a porthole, and the last shot had been through the window at, say, a terraformed Mars? Suggesting a "larger" world and being just a little disconcerting (as the audience assumed it was on earth).

Do you thing this would have added "zing" or sucked as campy?

Re:I'm all for this and more.

[Seehund]

There are two things people seem to be hysterically against, nuclear power and genetic engineering.

Yes, and this article isn't about any of those topics. It's about achieving a homologue transfusion of haematopoetic stem cells. Nothing new, move along.


.-. .- -.. .. --- -....- .- -.- - .. ...- .. - .-.- - ...-.-

Re:The wonders of modern science.

[Gothland]

If you think this is a good idea, regardless of people that say it's unethical, good for you.

But if you think morality is outdated, you're wrong. Morals are just as popular as ever. New scientific concepts are not immoral by default. They are immoral if they contradict existing morals. Silicon chips were invented well after morality, and I don't think anyone is claiming that their mere existance is immoral. What are you trying to say?

Morality and religion simply aren't relevant to the fast-changing modern world, you say. You're wrong here, too. They are becoming more important, because morals are a lot easier to implement in our fast-paced world than tactics or strategy. I can take a number of devices, find you, and kill you. According to your argument, because it's scientifically possible, it should be defined as moral, and good. Thankfully for you, everyone else refrains from killing you. Why? Morals.

baby tested for genetic traits

[grnarrow]

The newborn baby won't have the same disease as his sister. His cells were specifically screened against that. This article explains briefly the steps the doctors took in selecting his particular group of fetal cells.

Re:Playing the Hand You're Deal (or Rigging the Ga

[sjames]

What kind of nonsense is this? Do you actually have any evidence for this or are you merely spouting hearsay, rumors, and urban legends?

Just two days ago, a headline came up on my pager. Two doctors were found to have allowed patients to die in order to harvest their kidneys. It is not common, but cases are documented.

Re:10 Years From Now.

[substrate]

And from that day forward, little Johnny had to live with the knowledge that were it not for some quirk of fate, his parents wouldn't have had him.

And your point is? How many kids know they were conceived because daddy's condom broke, mommy forgot her pill or mommy got knocked up during a one night stand? Does that have a positive psychological impact?

The parents were stupid and greedy for going public with the story without anonymity. The media was absolutely reprehensible (but then, how often isn't it?) if they didn't try to talk them into anonymity. The event itself was newsworthy. Knowing the people's names added absolutely nothing but potentially caused a lot of damage.

Re:Playing the Hand You're Deal (or Rigging the Ga

[trims]

In the USA, this is almost certainly true - the safeguards we have are pretty darned effective. I'd be willing to bet that there aren't such "questionable" donations here. However, that leaves the rest of the entire world. There are lots of documented cases of people in 3rd world countries (particularly Pacific Rim, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Subcontinent) of destitute people selling body parts for cash. The transplants are done places where the controls are few and ethics ignored.

While we can bemoan that, and say "oh, but it never happens here, because of our ethical controls..." that's all nice and good, until you realize that most of the RECIPIENTS of those organs are richer Westerners who couldn't get a organ through normal channels.

So, I think we're being a bit hipocritical in our stance on this, aren't we?

-Erik

Another bioethical baby dilemna

[grnarrow]

There's another bioethical debate on selecting baby traits going on in Scotland. A couple (with 4 sons) who lost their only daughter are using the courts to get permission to pre-select the sex of their child to ensure they have another daughter. Details here at the BBC.

Personally, I say if they're that desperate for a daughter, let them adopt one.

Re:I don't think this is as big as it's been repor

[jht]

There are a lot of decisions that can be made that risk descending the proverbial slope - many ethical issues having nothing to do with this discussion included.

There's a difference, however slight, between screening for existing problems that are known to run in the families involved and simple selection of the "best" characteristics. Each human is precious - and it's a Good Thing to try and ensure that new humans will not die horribly or prematurely from things that can be avoided (or simply by choosing the more viable of the available embryos in an IVF process. Most people will, of course, continue to be born the old-fashioned way - since these risks only affect a relatively small number of people.

We, for instance, have no genetic "issues" leading us to IVF, it's a case of having no success over many years of the traditional method. Most IVF couples are in the same boat - genetic reasons are a tiny percentage of the reasons for IVF, it's usually plain old infertility problems that bring you there, not building a master race or any of that kind of crap.

The other issue this touches is the "what is a life?" question. Obviously, there are the traditional pro-life and pro-choice sides. In normal conception, one egg is fertilized by one sperm - and the question then becomes one of when is it human? Killing humans is, of course, wrong - but the definition is far different between the medical and the religious perspectives, and most people cleave between those standards. Most assisted reproductive technologies create (and often fertilize) as many as 20 eggs - are we morally obligated to implant every one of those? I don't think so (and 20 children is not in my plan, I'll guarantee that!). Is it an all-or-nothing propostion?

But if we can repair things like Huntington's or Cystic Fibrosis (for instance) in the womb or in the petri dish, why not? I don't think we should necessarily abort the child who will be born blind, but if the parents have 10 viable embryos to choose, and one of them has a gene that leads to blindness, and one has the CF genes, assuming they can't be repaired, why implant those when the others don't have it? That's where I draw the line. Biological reproduction is a crapshoot too, when genetic defects are concerned - having the gene doesn't guarantee that the child will have it, too.

I'd avoid the Mengele references as a part of this discussion, though. Not only did he and his sort remove a good deal of my relatives from the human race, but his effort were designed to produce better Aryans (survival of the fittest) - whereas what we're generally talking about here is intended to simply produce humans (of any race) that survive, period. There's no master plan, other than trying to provide a couple with a healthy child.

And it's awful close to invoking Godwin's Law, too, besides being something that, in a lot of places, would get you assaulted by the person you accuse.

- -Josh Turiel

If God Hadn't Wanted us to Fly

[Greyfox]

He wouldn't have given us a big fucking brain to figure out aerodynamics with.

I view humanity's progress as a child growing up. We'll make mistakes along the way, but we already have many powers our ancestors would have described as God-Like. If we survive, we will surely terraform and seed a planet with life. Possibly even life of our own design. Not much different from creating the heavens and the earth and llamas and goats and things.

To stay on topic, I wouldn't view anything these people did as immoral. They used technology at their disposal to save their daughter's life, and they got a son in the process. I've no doubt they'll care for the son every bit as much as they do the daughter. Not only did they not cross any lines, they weren't anywhere near any lines.

Someone pointed out that it's becomming feasible to choose a child based on genes for tallness or blonde hair or whatever. There is a potential danger that we'll reduce diversity in the gene pool. I don't really foresee old fashioned reproduction as being replaced anytime soon though.

Re:10 Years From Now.

[quietlysubversive]

• Daughter: Is to. The only reason they had you is so they could save me. Otherwise they never would have had you.
  
  Son: (to father) Dad, is this true?
  
  Father: Well...

Son: You owe your life to me bitch. I want my room clean by Saturday. I want my fishtank washed, and don't forget the laundry.

Spare parts

[Muttonhead]

Everybody should have spare parts available. Hey, we *are* the Borg.

Re:New frontiers

[Jeremy Erwin]

For every ethical dilemna, there are alternative situations where the ethics are far more confused. So the kid was selected on the basis of not having the disease, and being a good match for a tissue donation. I think that was a good choice.

It should be pointed out that the embryo was selcted (as is usual with in vitro fertilization), not designed. The tissue donation is relatively non-harmful to the donor.

Now, if you want to play "Bioethical Nightmare," there are plenty of other possible scenarios, none of which apply in this presnt situation.

Example: You need an organ. To ensure maximum biocomapatibility, it may prove advantageous to produce a clone from which the organs will be harvested. Since the clone will be discarded after harvesting, should measures be taken to ensure that the clone will not develop a brain?

Now that's an ethical minefield...

True, but then you make my point for me....

[trims]

I would agree with the first half of your post. We do indeed use other people for a wide variety of things - society is built on people using people. I'm not bemoaning that particular fact. Organ donation is a "use" of other people, but not in the manner that I think is something to worry about.

What I was more particularly worried about was the specific use of another person's body against his or her will for the sole purpose of aiding someone else. What happens if we have required organ donation? Or even blood giving required by law? Or worse yet, either of the two by forced societal convention? Yes, that means lots more available to cure and/or help sick people, but at what cost? We lose control over that most basic of items, the determination of our body's fate. If I can't control what I do with my body, well, I might as well just give up now.

The very last paragraph is exactly what I worry about. It is the belief by scientists (and the technically minded) that "I'll just make this thing cause I can, and let someone else worry about how it gets used." That's the worst way to approach things. Kinda like saying "I'll cross the street, but not look for traffic until I get in the middle." People far, far better than I have worried about this (and stood on the fence and screamed about it) and we're still nowhere near a decent societal dialog. Take a look at Oppenheimer and Bohr.

We need to stop and think about what we do (and the consequences thereof) before we jump feet first into it. Similarly, our society needs to start making choices about things that aren't good for it. Maybe these things are good for a segment of society, but as a whole, they're bad. Unfortunately, society has a bad track record on this problem, but that doesn't mean I can't still scream about it, and hope that we wake up before it's too late.

Science, like life, should live by the manta "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

-Erik

Re:True, but then you make my point for me....

[sjames]

It is the belief by scientists (and the technically minded) that "I'll just make this thing cause I can, and let someone else worry about how it gets used." That's the worst way to approach things.

Nobody wants their invention or discovery to be used badly. The problem is that most things have potential for good and bad. Typically, science just presents the possability. The society at large then uses or doesn't use it. It could be argued that a scientist who doesn't present a new finding to the world due to a belief that it will be mis-used is guilty of extreme hubris.

We need to stop and think about what we do (and the consequences thereof) before we jump feet first into it.

Agreed 100%

Re:True, but then you make my point for me....

[American AC in Paris]

For starters: I pretty much agree with you completely in sentiment. Forcing a person to participate in organ donation would be (in my own opinion) quite wrong indeed, and society needs to take a good look at what it does.

On your other point, that of "Just because you can doesn't mean you should", I do agree with that, as well. However, where I disagree with you is in the execution of this belief. You (do correct me if I'm wrong, as I'm starting to extrapolate information here) are stating that it is necessary to consider the possilibities of the misuse of this (or any other) technology in reference to the technology itself. That is, the technology should be reviewed based on it's possible misuses and should be stalled until we have fully addressed the potential misuses of said technology. This is certainly not a bad approach, but I don't believe that it is the best approach.

Using a technological development as the catalyst for social examination is problematic because given any technology, the odds of the technology itself having any bearing on how society would choose to use it is virtually nil. There is a chance that humankind would decide to use advances in genetic science to ethically and artificially produce viable organs for those in need. There is also a chance that society would use such a technology to create a "donor class" of people destined to act as organ banks for those in need of transplants--a decidedly less ethical approach. For argument's sake, let's assume that only one or the other of these scenarios could happen. What, then, does delaying the implementation of the technology accomplish? If the society is a just society, it will make the correct decisions on how to use the technology properly. If the society is unjust, it will not. The advent of the technology in question does not play a defining role in how society decides to use it; similarly, society is unlikely to be significantly changed by discussion of the technology in it's own limited realm. The technology is a tool, and nothing more. Though we as a society ponder the "ethics" of virtually each and every new technological breakthrough, the end result rarely differs from what the society would have done with the technology all along.

Rather than juxtapose our efforts at societal improvement against any given technology, I think it would be better to simply maintain a constant, general scrutiny of the society we live in. Yes, I realize how big of a pipe dream this is, and I understand that it is quite unlikely to happen. But in my opinion, the mantra "Just because you can doesn't mean you should" is just as vaild as "just because you can doesn't mean you shouldn't." This genetic breakthrough is, at it's heart, a tool. There are clearly both proper and improper uses for this tool, and in all likelihood, we will see both. This will not, however, be a function of the technology; it will be almost exclusively a function of the society that uses it.

Now, I wholeheartedly agree with stalling the progress of science so that it can be sufficiently tested to ensure a tool's general safety, and to ensure that we understand the important technical aspects of how to use it. (A great example of society -not- doing this would be the United States' hasty introduction of nuclear technology well before it was adequately understood.) Stalling technology based on societal considerations, however, is simply counter-productive. The only possilbility of benefit coming from this is if the society undergoes a fundemental shift in ethics, which can also just as easily work in the other direction, and would in all likelihood happen regardless of the technology in question.

We don't need to stop and think about what we should do. Rather, we need to not stop thinking about what we should do, ever.

Re:True, but then you make my point for me....

[aardvarkjoe]

If I can't control what I do with my body, well, I might as well just give up now.

Why do you think that? Last I checked, there was more to life that simply what happens to your extra blood or organs. I don't see this as any different than, say, requiring that we give up some of our abstract liberties in order to live in a society, which is what the law is all about.

I'd never argue that blood/organ donation should be mandatory; I do think that it should be a person's personal choice. (An aside to everyone: if you don't donate blood, or haven't specified that you'd like your organs to be donated if possible, and don't have moral objections to it, do it today. It's not much trouble.) But I don't see why you hold that privledge above all others. I personally couldn't care less what happens to my body after I'm dead. If you have a reason for caring, please enlighten me. (As for things while your alive ... really, same idea, if it doesn't affect you adversely.)

Re:New frontiers

[Grab]

I don't see anything wrong with selecting a desired embyro from a "shortlist". The embryos only ever have combinations of the parents' genes, so if you've both got brown eyes, it's unlikely that you'll be able to have a child with blue eyes.

For starters, medical reasons are _always_ justified. I'm sure there's plenty of ppl with Down's Syndrome, cerebral palsy, spina bifida, sickle-cell anaemia, etc who would say that they're leading perfectly fulfilling lives, but I'm equally sure that given the option, they'd all like to be able to wipe out the disease they're suffering from. On Newsnight (UK) last night, there was a guy saying "we shouldn't allow this, bcos there's always suffering in the world and trying to eliminate suffering isn't possible, we just have to face up to it", which is possibly the most unpleasant idea I've ever heard, right up there alongside race-hatred - no-one in their right mind would _choose_ for their child to suffer, and if you are prepared to put religious or intellectual dogma over your child's life, you're not fit to be a parent.

Selecting for physical characteristics - well that's more complex, but I don't have a problem with it. If anyone can come up with a reason not to do this which doesn't involve either "God's Law" or "Brave New World"/"Gattaca" type distopias, then I'd be interested to hear it. I personally don't believe that trying to ensuring your baby has the best possible start in life is wrong. Equally, I also know that genetics only plays a small part in your makeup - there's also factors from the mother's hormones during pregnancy, from how they're fed during childhood, and from psychological factors in their upbringing. So this is just another contribution to bringing up a child, like trying to get them into a decent school.

Grab.

Re:10 Years From Now.

[joshv]

A ball of cells containing approximately 8 cells is destroyed and this is an abortion?

If killing a cell that has the potential to become a human being is an abortion - I committed several million abortions just last night. ;)

-josh

Re:OK..What About The Newborn...

[Kalvin]

If this kid they had genetically crafted from the parents already fucked up cells has the same traits as his sisters, then wouldn't it make sense to think this kid will also be prone to the same exact disease which he was born to fix in his older sister?

No, they did genetic tests on the embryo, it was picked out of a bunch of embryos cause it wouldn't develop the disease.

Re:It IS right

[GigsVT]

Because we don't know the effects that this will have.

You think the creaters of the Internet knew the effects it would have on society in the future? I don't see why there are so many Neo-Luddites on a site like this.

[Once we] upset the balance of nature and to stop it's natural course, then we've crossed the line and we need to wake up and take a long hard look at what we're doing.

Back to my original argument: We have been doing this since we learned to harness tools other than our own bodies. You can't differentiate between "good technology" and "bad technology", that is the point of nearly EVERY article on /. Everyone on here criticizes laws being passed against "hacking tools", and stuff like that, and I agree.

This is the exact same thing. You can't brand a technology "bad" or "good" like that. Technology has posed a serious threat to our existance for millenia, ever since the invention of the first weapon used to kill another man.
-

Re:Genetics Inches Forward

[krmt]

Of course, it does raise that issue, but the reality of it is that people aren't going to go about chucking a kid for parts. One thing that I forsee in the future in cases like this is more along the lines of gene therapy and genetic screening. There's already a lot of screening being done for Taysach's disease (spelling, anyone?) and the like. That's where the real benefit comes in, so you don't have to go about even thinking of having a child for "spare parts."

"I may not have morals, but I have standards."

Re:10 Years From Now.

[krmt]

The important thing here is for the parents to make the boy feel loved, so that it isn't an issue of who loves who more, but whether or not he is loved, which is the parents' job in the end, not the kids'.

While this could cause problems for the boy down the line, the damage could be minimalized or even non-existent if the parents truly love the boy, and treat him like they love him just as they would treat the daughter.

This problem doesn't have anything to do with genetic screening, but simple affection and genuine universal parenting problems. Witness middle child syndrome, where in a family of three, the middle child feels that the oldest gets all the privledges while the youngest is the baby, and the middle one feels rejected. This isn't about genetics but parenting, and if the parents truly love the boy, then this issue will be moot.

"I may not have morals, but I have standards."

Consider this....

[FreeJack1]

Look at this situation in a different light;
the couple probably already wanted more than one child,
the umbilical cord and the blood from within it would have probably been disposed of anyway,
the couple was in danger of losing their daughter, who at that time was their only living offspring.
So why not make use of a good thing and "recycle" something that was going to be discarded and use it to help another human being? I'm sure the parents, if they're worth their salt and they sound like they are, will love both children the same, regardless of what the situation was of their births?
S'aright? S'aright!
--

Vote Homer Simpson for President!

Re:Consider this....

[SecurityGuy]

Please read the article. Using cord blood is absolutely irrelevant to the ethical issue at hand. I happen to think disposing of "unwanted" embryos is unethical. Using cord blood is fine.

That said, I've refused to participate not over ethical issues, but over stupid legal issues. The cord blood goes not necessarily to save lives but to whatever purpose they find useful. The defined purpose is to save lives, but sometimes the blood isn't suitable, at which point it gets used for unspecified research projects. You don't get to choose if you want to be part of those projects. You can exercise no control over the dissemination of information about the child which is contained in that blood. I wouldn't pass out a copy of my DNA for unspecified use, neither will I do so on my children's behalf.

Cord blood use is good. Stupid grasping institutions that like agreements that strip patients' rights ruin it.

Re:partners.nytimes.com works again...

[jallen02]

I said the result made it worth it didnt I, but its a gamble, that little girl had no way of knowing if she would devlop leukemia withint he frame she was waiting for her donor to be created.

Its a roll of the dice, they won, others might not.

Jeremy

Re:OK..What About The Newborn...

[pabstblueribbon]

Doh...missed that part...was just skimming the article..

its an ethical question

[revin]

The questin is, what are the ethical procedures in hospitals? The parents are just in some stress situation, and specialist should help them in analysing the case and evaluating them. In this case the parents should have been evaluated if the baby also would be born iff his sister wasnt ill, or that the kid will get even attention as his sister.

Re:its an ethical question

[cra]

If the sister get more attention due to her illness, that's only natural. It would happen even if she became ill after her brother was born. I have no doubt however, that the parent will love both their children equally. The fact that the boy saved his sister will probably make them closer, too.


---

Re:It IS right

[Sebastopol]

it's called common sense

Careful: when you assume that your opinions are of the 'common' denominator it sounds like right tyrannical attitude. Catholics think lots of silly things are common sense, like virgin births and miracles. Pol Pot and Milosovich thought a silly thing like genocide was common sense.

But then again, someone's beliefs are always gonna get boned. Fuck, 30% of Alabama thinks the law banning interractial marriage should be left alone. What the fuck is up with that? And we expect these cretins and yokels to grapple with genetics?

who's the comic with the 'fuck common sense, we need elite sense' bit?

(sorry if this came out twice, first post was accidentally AC and I tried to halt it)
---
Unto the land of the dead shalt thou be sent at last.
Surely thou shalt repent of thy cunning.

Re:Where is the line drawn?

[curious.corn]

Well, it does suggest Gattaca's script...
Anyhow, nature has been doing it since the dawn of time. Think about natural selection: the faster creatures eat, the weaker simply die and fail to reproduce.
We, as part of the human species, are instinctively social animals. Thus, we help each other as the odds of surviving are higher than what they would be if we lived as solitary beings. It's a survival strategy that has evolved itself thru selection.
As long as we have the means to aid other beings (scientific progress, willingness & means to raise a family, etc) it's unethical not to, but failing that, it's best to let nature take it's course and the weakling's life. It sounds a bit fascist but I think it's reasonable (this doesn't imply I'm fascist though!)
Doing otherwise would break a pattern that has allowed humanity's survival and perhaps endanger it.
Abusing it, will be just as deleterious because having blue eyes or a smart voice isn't necessarily a succesfull evolutionary trait.
Just my 2 cents

Read the F*** Article Moron

[Troy Roberts]

I get tired of the kind of stupid commentary. It clearly says in the article that the embryo was chosen to NOT have the same disease and match the girls blood type.

Re:New frontiers

[Steve S]

You need an organ. To ensure maximum biocomapatibility, it may prove advantageous to produce a clone from which the organs will be harvested. Since the clone will be discarded after harvesting, should measures be taken to ensure that the clone will not develop a brain?

To this I answer a resounding "YES!, of course!" I really don't see how that situation could possibly be an "ethical minefield". A human body that has never developed a brain cannot possibly be a person, so who is there to worry about?

That's exactly the situation I keep trying to bring up to defend cloning technology when someone brings up their fears about growing people solely for organs.
Of course if it's possible to grow donor bodies without brains that will be done. And if it's not possible, then I seriously doubt that clones will have any fewer rights than natural born people.
Why go worrying about supposed special cases when the general case (you can't just take an organ from someone) covers it?

Don't Tell Jon Katz!

[Robotech_Master]

Better not tell Jon Katz about this, or he'll have an excuse for another poorly-thought-out diatribe!

(As if he's ever needed an excuse...)
--

Re:From other sources...

[delysid-x]

Yes, but they are potential humans (like so many people I know) Don't they deserve the same chance as all the other embryos? Let them free to fend for themselves!

Free the embryos!
?

Re:This is getting bad!

[bkr1_2k]

This is not the entire story. The parents had decided to have another baby anyway. They just believed that if they were going to have a second baby it might as well have the chance of keeping their daughter alive too. This isn't about making someone just to heal someone else. This isn't about picking your babies skin, hair, or eye color. This was about saving their daughter's life. If you are a parent you will certainly understand what this decision meant to these parents. I agree, that which does not kill us makes us stronger. Unfortunately, these people didn't have that choice. The desease their daughter has isn't making her stronger and it is killing her. I would probably make the same choice if I were in their position.

Re:New frontiers

[delysid-x]

How close are we to being able to custom produce a strand of DNA? Once you can do that, you could say 'switch on the blond, blue eye and athletic genes and turn off all the diseases', squirt out a jar of DNA and inject it into all the little embryos you want.

Want to order Jimmy57 from CustomBabiesForYou.com? Soon!

Re:10 Years From Now.

[segfault7375]

And from that day forward, little Johnny had to live with the knowledge that were it not for some quirk of fate, his parents wouldn't have had him.

I would also say that little Johnny has to live with the fact that if he had not been born, his older sister would most likely have died. I think the fact that knowing you have saved someone else's life (especially a family memeber) would cancel out any negative feelings. Think about it, this baby is a hero, and he didn't even have to do anything!

Just my $0.02.
Segfault

segfault@bellatlantic.net

Re:10 Years From Now.

[ap0stle]

I like the situation of that baby.
At least he knows why he is born, while the rest of us are lost wandering in philosophical considerations (why are we here? is there a purpose?...).

Actually, he's the only guy who can pretend he knows.

-------
Ap0stle

Re:first

[terpia]

RATS......foiled again

a new technique, but not a new debate

[not_anne]

Marissa-Eve Ayala was conceived and born specifically to save the life of her sister Anissa, who had leukemia.

Anissa's mother was over 40, and her father had had a vasectomy years earlier. Anissa's dad's vasectomy was reversed, they got pregnant, and the baby matched Anissa's blood type perfectly.

There was only a 1 in 4 chance the baby was going to match Anissa's blood type, but the family was willing to continue to have more and more children until they bore a child that matched Anissa.

Anissa is fully recovered now (after two transplants from Marissa, which isn't exactly a painless procedure) and you can read a news blurb about it here.

There was even a TV movie made about the story here.

not_anne

NYT Freak Show

[twitter]

Did that picture of the family at a Carnival disturb anyone else? There's something queer about making money of this family's medical problems. Sure, it's news but the drift of news towards entertainment is not healthy.

I'm amazed by the glaring subtlety of Denise Grady's aricle. Her opinions were pushed into this by choice of goulish details. The ethical conundrum of conceiving six children only to birth one was thrown in our teeth against the parent's objection to the one in four chance of their next naturaly concieved child having a one in four chance of a fatal disease. The little girl's statement at the end was especially chilling, "My brother's going to give me some of his blood to make me feel better." Were these details and that carnival photo put in there to encourage serious debate or to titilate?

Re:New frontiers

[delysid-x]

Uh oh, I better call my patent lawyer so I can sue someone over this later!

Re:partners.nytimes.com works again...

[Spunk]

I've been using guest/password for months now.

--

Re:Genetics Inches Forward

[radja]

I'm a little ambivalent about it. I don't think the parents (or doctors) made a wrong decision. But it does open the door for more ethically questionable practices. (chuck the new kid, just keep certain parts for the old one..)

mostly though.. it's positive.

//rdj

partners.nytimes.com works again...

[jCaT]

http://partners.nytim es. com/2000/10/04/science/04BLOO.html

schweet... too bad they canned the cypherpunks/cypherpunks account there, but as long as this works who cares. No annoying banners or anything...

Re:partners.nytimes.com works again...

[Ventilator]

I agree with you.

But, the question is: Was it worth the try? Was it worth, giving life to a baby which might would not exist if the girl didn't have this disease?

Re:partners.nytimes.com works again...

[mashx]

Instead of cypherpunks/cypherpunks try cpunks and cpunks.

Re:partners.nytimes.com works again...

[Winged Cat]

Instead of cypherpunks/cypherpunks try cpunks and cpunks.

Or cypherpunkss/cypherpunkss.

Re:partners.nytimes.com works again...

[Lurker187]

What strikes me as.. not so great is they were willing to take a gamble of 9 months to improve their odds of sucess from 50-85%, im not sure the odds of the condition worsening but it definately seemed a little risky..

That's if you can actually find an unrelated donor.

• Approximately 80 percent of all patients identify at least one potential match on their preliminary search. Remember, however, that not all of the 80 percent of patients who identify an identical donor at the preliminary search will necessarily go on to the transplant stage. (
• National Marrow Donor Program)

And the success rate of 85% with allogenic (unrelated) donors is probably that high because the recipients are given higher doses of immune-suppression drugs, which can have nasty side effects, even while they prevent rejection.

Re:partners.nytimes.com works again...

[jallen02]

This is an interesting thought, they fertilize several embryo's (I wonder what abortion people thinka bout this one ehh...) and then they test them until they find one they want with the right cell types, nothing rocket science ish here. The technique they used was something I had not heard before....

So then they discard all but the one they wanted and took a bit of a gamble for the kids health.

The disease she has developers into leukemia(sp) if not treated so they waited 9 months in which time the condition could have worsened so they could use the babies blood.

What strikes me as.. not so great is they were willing to take a gamble of 9 months to improve their odds of sucess from 50-85%, im not sure the odds of the condition worsening but it definately seemed a little risky.. but the ned result made it worth it, but still I dont know how "good" this all is.. R
Jeremy

Re:partners.nytimes.com works again...

[Guylhem]

The article is also available from CNN and in french for non english readers.

On both sites, no registration is required.

Re:The wonders of modern science.

[bkr1_2k]

I suppose you believ nuclear weapons are moral and good?! Morality and religion (if you ascribe to a higher power or not) have all the relevance in the "fast-changing modern world." Without moral guidance the Germans would have annihilated the entire Jewish race, Iraq would still be testing chemical weapons on their own citizens and slavery would still be legal in the United States. Saying it's good because it's possible is like saying it's okay to kill my brother because I'm bigger, and stronger than he is. It's not only ignorant, it's ludicrous! Morality, whether outdated or not is part of the checks and balances we use in life. Without morality their is chaos. Like it or not, morality and religion are here to stay. And they should be!

True, but...

[bug_hunter]

This is a weak form of genetic engineering if even that, it is scientific genetic selection yet that's probably how removal of diseases from gene pool would work.
In scenerio where child would have 1/2 chance of being carrier, 1/4 chance of being infected, could hunt around for that last healthy 1/4.

Even if the article is more based on the medical procedure of healing the girl after the birth, there still will be 100 posts on this article of anti-folling around with genetics in any way.

Re:10 Years From Now.

[cra]

1. The parents will (this is not an attempt of Jedi mind tricks) love their son just as much as their daughter. If they won't even love him more for saving his sister.

2. Any child might one day as their parents: "Mom, Dad. Did you ever think of having an abortion when you were pregnant with me?" And the answer might be something like "Yes, we discussed it,and I/Your mom/Your dad wanted an abortion, but I/Your mom/Your dad refused to have it".

3. Just think about all the single parents. Their children (not all are single because the other parent want nothing to do with their kids) face the fact every day that their other parent "don't love them" and want nothing to do with them.


---

Re:Where is the line drawn?

[krmt]

The problem is, as you say, drawing the line. But how do you actually do that? Unfortunately, even in your argument you can see the difficulty in separating "medical" from "personal." After all, couldn't resistance to disease be classified as either?

If the child was screened for, say, color-blindness, then how is this wrong? How does dealing with color-blindness help someone? Granted, diversity is necessary (although the simple nature of DNA will take care of that just fine) but why does having the gene for color blindness help a man or even mankind? After all, it seems to me that color blindness can't help anyone, but remains so common simply because it doesn't hurt your chances of reproductive success very much to have the trait.

Now, I'm not trying to say that we should screen out color blindness in embryos at all. On the contrary, I think that people shouldn't have their embryos screened unless there is a history of some genetic disease (the "medical" reasons you refer to) but I think it's truly hard to actually say to a person "No, you can't have your child screened for color blindness because it's morally wrong!" Why is it wrong? I really can't say for sure. That's what makes the whole thing so difficult.

"I may not have morals, but I have standards."

Re:kuro5hin

[terpia]

I've been reading kuro5hin all day. Computer news discussions without the idiotic open source bullshit and Linux freaks.Slashdot looks so damn ugly in comparision.

listen up you evil slashdot defiler!!!!!

Slashdot is my lifeblood - I have little social interaction outside of this forum. This IS my virtual community, and, my only REAL community. I value all posts, relevant or not. I love the trolls. I love the intelligent posts. I love the first posts and the penis birds. Its HUMANITY. The Good, the Bad, the Ugly - all conveniently rolled up and pre-packaged for my consumption. The social equivalent of microwave burritos. So dont fuck with it. Yes, i AM drunk. Nontheless, Slashdot is my own uptopia. The opensource bullshit pushers and linux freaks are my brethren. I will say that kuro5hin is nice possibly even cool. But, its like women, smart perfect ones are nice, but i like the crude mannered but fine bodied and well rounded ones better.

Re:10 Years From Now.

[kjots]

My oh my, did we forget our reading glasses?

> The Nashes had been hoping to have more children but had decided against
> it because there was a one-in- four chance that the infant would have the
> same illness as Molly. Although the disease can be detected before birth and
> an affected fetus aborted, Mrs. Nash said, "I could not have done that." The
> preimplantation genetic diagnosis allowed the Nashes to select an embryo that
> did not have Fanconi anemia but shared Molly's tissue type.
>
> "You could say it was an added perk to have Adam be the right bone marrow
> type, which would not hurt him in the least and would save Molly's life," Mrs.
> Nash said. "We didn't have to think twice about it."

--
Karl J. Ots, Professional Nobody.

Choose your future

[anpe]

It's strange to see how humans always say they're going to think about ethical problems and finally the things simply arrive whitout any preparation.

Re:first

[terpia]

I noticed that disagreeing during meta-moderating seems to be frowned upon, at least karma wise. Fuck Karma.

I post.
Therefore I am.

Who needs natural selection anyways?[nt]

[Altheus]

nt

Re:Where is the line drawn?

[Cheetahfeathers]

This is a very relavent, and there are possible real world examples of this. One possible reason for the relative commonness of a type of disease (MS or cystic fibrosis(spl?), I don't remember exactly which, is that it was linked to a gene that let people survive the Bubonic plague.

There are all sorts of possibilities like this scenario.

Cord Blood Banking is Theft

[Ho-Lee-Cow!]

The baby needs those stem cells as much as the people getting them from the bank. The transistion from womb to breathing is tied to the umbilical cord and whether that cord is allowed to cease pulsing on its own. Hospitals are so busy trying to turn a fast buck on the stem cells in that cord that they cut it too soon and force the transition to quickly. It's unethical as all hell, but anything in the name of 'saving lives' or, in the old form 'a buck'.

With a 25-30% C-section rate in this country, most all of them done for convenience of doctors and the money you can reap from insurance, don't even talk about health benefits. When mankind finally learns to keep his hands out of things he has no business messing with, our world is going to get a whole lot better. Until then, little boys like Adam are going to be manufactured by dimwitted parents for all the wrong reasons.

I may be a geek, but I don't look at people like I look at peripherals.

Re:New frontiers

[Clayworth]

That's easy. The kid wasn't 'designed to be healthy', ten or so of his siblings were destroyed, for no better reason than that they weren't medically useful. Not because they wouldn't be viable themselves, or would have diseases, or would suffer, but just because they weren't useful to someone else. Is that how we want to treat human beings? Not me.

Re:Horribly disfigured children!!

[Mr. Slippery]

As those cells divide, the baby will have a serious deficity as an entire source or exponential division is missing!! I mean, that baby is going to divide strangely, and probably develop a cleft pallet or something!

It doesn't work that way. Fetal development isn't based on "x rounds of exponential cell division and we're done."

This is not the first time such a procedure has been done; fetal development is not affected by removing one cell. Heck, remember that early on in development an embryo can split in two, and each half form a perfectly fine infant. (Actually, it might not be an embryo yet at that stage - blastula? Gastrula? Whatyamacallit? Dammit Jim, I'm a hacker, not a biologist.)

Re:I don't think this is as big as it's been repor

[Croatian Sensation]

A couple of things. There is no debate as to whether or not these fertilized eggs are humans. They indeed have the genetic makeup that makes them humans. The debatable part is whether or not it is a person. Some argue that it only becomes a human when it passes through the proverbial cervix of the woman, some argue that it's when the egg is fertilized by the sperm. This isn't the debate that we're discussing now though.

Again, I do not disagree with your idea that we repair these problems in the womb, after the baby is on its way to being born, however, once we decide to eliminate the embryos that are not "up to snuff" in some way (CF, Huntington's disease, predisposition to breast cancer, Lou Gehrig's disease, etc) we are already on that slippery slope.

People that are much taller and stronger than others have a great chance of surviving in certain places in the world. Why don't we try to design our humans in order to allow them to survive in these environments.

There's an article about a couple in the National Post which talks about a couple of parents wanting to choose a female child in order to cure their own phsychological illness (diagnosed by doctors). How does differ from the subject of today's discussion about the child raised for stem cells? Or does it differ at all?

And please don't tell me to avoid the Mengele reference. I had plenty of friends and relatives that have suffered through a certain government's efforts to create a homogenous people. There might not be a "master plan" as you put it, but where do we draw the line? Which diseases are alright to cure, and which diseases are not OK to cure?

I know first hand how someone with a horrible disease can be a burden on society, however, I know also that said sick person contributes more to society through the changes he makes in other's people's lives than what he draws from it in financial terms.

Life choices...

[AntiPasto]

I heard a doctor speak on this matter, and he said that people have a lot of reasons for childbirth: saving a marriage, a friend for their previous children, or to help on the farm. To save a life, he said, is one of the best reasons he had heard.

----

Re:Life choices...

[Kupek]

That was an almost exact quote from the doctor who was involved in the procedure, per the Washington Post article I read on the same topic.

"People have kids for all kinds of reasons: to save a failing marriage, to work on the family farm, to perpetuate the family name. In the scheme of things, this is the most wanted child I've ever met. They love the heck out of this kid."
--Charles Strom, director of medical genetics at Illinois Masonic Medical Center

The Post article can be found here. Free registration not required.

Re:Where is the line drawn?

[Forgotten]

I pretty much agree with you, and I'm equally worried by the implications of all this. But in this case, and in many like it, the quality of life of the younger sibling is going to be improved by being born into a family free of the stress of a daughter dying of leukemia. Let's face it, that's just good for everyone in the family and anyone who even remotely knows them.

The problem with your fine line is that it's often illusory - what's currently regarded as a "medical reason" may not be tomorrow, or vice-versa. Stress is a huge influence on every aspect of a child's development, and there are many ways that this sort of monkeying about can reduce it.

Re:Horribly disfigured children!!

[NecroPuppy]

As those cells divide, the baby will have a serious deficity as an entire source or exponential division is missing!! I mean, that baby is going to divide strangely, and probably develop a cleft pallet or something!

At the 8-cell stage, there is no cell differentiation. The embryo just continues along. IIRC, differentiation doesn't set in for another 10 or so divisions.

It's at that point the cells start deciding what they will be. This exact process by which this happens is not really understood. Scientists can take such cells and tweak them into becoming certain things, but there is still a lot of trial and error.

Unfortunately, stem cell research is under fire here in the States because of the Right to Life crowd...

NecroPuppy
---
Godot called. He said he'd be late.

Life begins at conception?

[Forgotten]

I'm entirely pro-choice, but I have a serious problem with the mother in this story claiming she couldn't possibly naturally conceive and then abort a child if it tested positive for this disease, but she's fine ending the existence of several embryos that started life in a petri dish (as her son did) because they weren't viable donors for her daughter. This "free perk" stuff is just grim.

As far as I can tell, this simply exposes the absurdity in the anti-choice side of the abortion debate; just when are we supposed to think that life "begins"? Note that I'm not accusing this mother of anything but make a personal, emotional decision - but call it what it is. You can't be revulsed by abortion and find preimplantation selection just fine without admitting that there's no grounds for a philosophical argument here whatsoever.

Westerners?

[kirkb]

We humans (especially Westerners, and particularly Americans) like to cheat

Then explain to me why the back alleys of New Delhi and Beijing are littered with shops that will do sonograms/amniocentesis AND on-site abortions?

I love this rule about "it's okay to say racist stuff about westerners (particularly Americans), because they're the ones who do it to everyone else".

Re:10 Years From Now.

[Jamie Lokier]

3. Just think about all the single parents. Their children (not all are single because the other parent want nothing to do with their kids) face the fact every day that their other parent "don't love them" and want nothing to do with them.

It does happen.

But never forget that sometimes the other parents do love the children, lots, and wants a lot to do with them but the guardian parent won't allow it. Or sometimes both parents simply agree that they're unhappy living together and, despite their love for their children, they are all better off if one parent leaves for elsewhere. A painful split, but one which can work out nicely in the long run.

Re:Accidents vs Mistakes

[Paradise_Pete]

Say moderators, don't you think this is insightful?

-Pete

Re:New frontiers

[NecroPuppy]

A human body that has never developed a brain cannot possibly be a person, so who is there to worry about?

Thus explaining 98% of the Anonymous Cowards...

NecroPuppy
---
Godot called. He said he'd be late.

Re:That is so cool!!

[SquidBoy]

The news in the story is " Is it ethical to screen embryos for a disease so that a byproduct of the birth can be used to save the other childs life"

Actually the news is, is it OK to create children for spare parts if you look after them afterwards?

Re:10 Years From Now.

[tzanger]

And from that day forward, little Johnny had to live with the knowledge that were it not for some quirk of fate, his parents wouldn't have had him.

If it were not for some quirk of fate, none of us would be here. Think about it; the only reason we're here is because our parents were brought together by some quirk of fate, and their parents.... you get the picture.

Hell when my kids come to me and ask how they came around, I think my response will be "oops" for all three of them. None were planned but hell, does that make them less special than planned kids? Yes it makes it a little harder on the parents but it doesn't mean we love them any less. It was some quirk of fate which brought my wife and I together, another quirk of fate which had us together on the nights of their conceptions, and yet more quirks of fate which decided exactly which sperm and which egg came together.

I don't see a damn thing wrong with what these people did. If they were going to put their son up for adoption or treat him as a second class citizen then yeah, they've got a few screws loose. To me, it sounds like they wanted more kids, were scared of the risk of having multiply-diseased children and were finally convinced because it was possible to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

7 Year organ donation waiting list...

[Bad_CRC]

have yourself a kid, then when the kid is a few years old, harvest some of his organs. a kidney here, part of a liver, maybe a couple other odds and ends.

Scary thing is, it's going to happen. It's all a question of when, and what ethics need to be, or can be, enforced.

________

Re:New frontiers

[john@iastate.edu]

Can I get that with 1-click?

Re:This is ethical

[csmacd]

Of all the "have another baby to save the one already here" arguments, I like this one the best: "daughter can be saved with tissue that would normally be *discarded*." We're not talking about taking the new kiddo's kidney, liver, brain, or anything else the new kiddo might need.

This does raise the question, tho - should cord blood be saved as a matter of course? When our kiddo was born, we opted to save the cord blood, just in case, despite him being perfectly healthy.

Re:New frontiers

[SquidBoy]

What if the parents had put the new baby up for adoption after they got its placenta? There's plenty of people looking to adopt a healthy newborn, so what's the problem there? But keeping the baby in a veal crate or selling him to a Chinese restaurant would probably not be OK.

Can we say . . .

[gimple]

eugenics?

Re:It IS right

[Steeltoe]

Nobody can say wether it's right or wrong, or, everybody can say it. What does this imply? That there are no absolutes. You can judge as much as you like, but judging others is meaningless since you lack the god-like insight to do that properly.

I respect your choice of saying this is right and that is wrong, but don't expect everyone else to agree with you. What would YOU feel if you learned that you were let live by your parents because your tissue matched your sisters? Maybe they really didn't want an extra child, how will they treat you later compared to your sister?

Right and wrong doesn't really exist, only experiences do. We try to understand this by judging, but life is too complex to be put in a box.

- Steeltoe

Re:The wonders of modern science.

[Ermit]

Wow, I sincerely and honestly hope that you didn't mean to say:

> If something is scientifically possible, then it should automatically be moral and good

To assume that everything "scientifically possible" is good is a serious mistake. I'm not going to debate whether or not this case is morally right or wrong, but I do think that it can lead to dangerous territory.

~Steve
--

Re:It IS right

[gibson_81]

cute sig :)

Re:The wonders of modern science.

[arielb]

I'm sure mengele would agree with you too

Re:The wonders of modern science.

[gibson_81]

If something is scientifically possible, then it should automatically be moral and good.

Oh, you mean like Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
I'm not saying that I like the morals we have in our society today, but to say that "anything that can be done should be done, no matter what the consequenses" sounds like a worse alternative ... at least to me.

Nice troll.

[Steeltoe]

- Steeltoe

Re:Where is the line drawn?

[GigsVT]

If it is alright to select for medical reasons, who is to say that it isn't alright to select for other reasons - intelligence, appearance, resistance to diseases...?

And what the hell is so wrong with selecting a child that will be smarter, better looking, and healthy?
-

Re:10 Years From Now.

[terpia]

Daughter: Mommy and Daddy love me more than you.

Son: Do Not!!!

Daughter: Do Too!!!

Son: Prove it.

Daughter: Take a look at this news archive site. That's us they're talking about.

Son: Is not.

Daughter: Is to. The only reason they had you is so they could save me. Otherwise they never would have had you.

Son: (to father) Dad, is this true?

Father: Well...

And from that day forward, little Johnny had to live with the knowledge that were it not for some quirk of fate, his parents wouldn't have had him.

It's hard to say exactly what the psychological impact of this will be on Johnny, or whatever his name is. I think it's safe to say it won't be positive.

Shut up. How many of us had happy perfect childhoods. I didnt. I dealt with it, self medicated, and survived. Come to find out, i am a "broken condom baby" i.e. a MISTAKE. This has no bearing on how i view myself, or my life. Although as an interesting twist, im sure youll be interested to know that my 4 year-old son was also a "broken condom baby". (A mistake having ANOTHER mistake? Kind of lends credit to the chaos theory huh?) Im sure that I am doing my best as a father. I will make many horrible, psychologically scarring mistakes anyways. Thats some serious tough shit. My son WILL live through them, in fact, it will probably lend him some off-the-wall attitude and humor, in which he will in turn make many mistakes and will still turn out only semi-twisted, yet almost happy. And if he has a mistake, accident or whatever, and the child is sick and theres a chance, he better damn well do whatever it takes to fix it. Even if it means knocking the bitch up AGAIN. People are tough. they will survive, even through some emotional scars.

Re:Where is the line drawn?

[afflatus_com]

This is correct. Its Cystic Fibrosis, with the extra mucous in the GI tract giving an ability to survive things like cholera and dsyentery. Carrier frequency is 1/20 here in Ireland, since that defect helped the population get through some tough times.
Other biggy is sickle cell anemia. When malaria infects the blood cells, the blood cells with sickle-cell anemia sickle up, and the spleen destroys those cells, helping clear the virus.
There may be new unchallenged plagues on the horizon. If a Stephen King's The Stand scenario comes around, currently undesired genetic traits are a way to create different types of humans that may be at an advantage to survive.

---
"And the beast shall be made legion. Its numbers shall be increased a thousand thousand fold."

Re:The wonders of modern science.

[GodOfHellfire]

cloning yourself won't automatically allow you to live longer.

part of what makes you you are your experiences. you can't clone them.

you may be able to live a bit longer if you use body parts from your clone to replace your broken ones.

You miss the point... again...

[bmacy]

The basic precept for people against these type of procedures is that a distinct human life begins at conception. The rest of the handwaving on both sides beyond that is moot considering the precept -- whether or not you agree with it.

They are selecting between different human lives as to which will live... and knowingly started out figuring a couple dozen would be destroyed. It's appauling no matter the reason -- again for those of use holding to the precept -- doesn't matter if it is for gender, whether they carry a "homosexual or alcolohic gene", a disease, whatever.

For someone who holds that human life begins at conception, the only thing you can try to argue is that some human life is inherently more important than others... good luck... especially when it comes to children.

Brian Macy

Genetic selection

[func]

Hey, I see a lot of posts about how genetic selection is a bad thing. Any of you guys believe in natural selection? Well, we've gotten so good at the medical sciences in the last few centuries that natural selection doesn't really apply to us anymore.

For example, say I have such bad eyesight that I can't see anything without my glasses. A few milennia ago, I'd probably have died of starvation before I was able to reproduce. Now I'm free to wear glasses, contacts, or get laser surgery, lead a productive life, and pass on poor vision to my offspring.

We've figured out how to fix a lot of medical problems, (ie, glasses), but now we're just figuring out how to prevent them. If I had the option of ensuring my offspring had good vision, should I take it?

Re:Genetics Inches Forward

[Trespass]

Exactly. They'd rather have two *live* children than one dead child. It makes perfect sense to me, and I hope I'd have the same courage and honesty if I were in their situation.

Horribly disfigured children!!

[Spankophile]

When the embryos reach the eight-cell stage, one cell is removed [...]

Does this scare anyone?

As those cells divide, the baby will have a serious deficity as an entire source or exponential division is missing!! I mean, that baby is going to divide strangely, and probably develop a cleft pallet or something!

After just a little while that one missing cell could account for 2^64 missing cells!! That could probably account for missing a whole arm, or even worse an internal organ!!

What kind of satanic science is this!!

Re:Horribly disfigured children!!

[Spankophile]

I guess the joke was a bit too subtle.

Re:New frontiers

[Apocros]

For starters, medical reasons are _always_ justified. I'm sure there's plenty of ppl with Down's Syndrome, cerebral palsy, spina bifida, sickle-cell anaemia, etc who would say that they're leading perfectly fulfilling lives, but I'm equally sure that given the option, they'd all like to be able to wipe out the disease they're suffering from.

except that these procedures don't "cure" the affected embryo of whatever affliction they might have (down's syndrome, cerebral palsy, et. al.), they select different embryos which aren't afflicted. so i doubt many people with any sort of affliction would think: hey, i wish my parents had screened for... whatever. because if their parents had, they wouldn't exist at all.

Re:10 Years From Now.

[cra]

Been there, done that. :-/
My x took our kid and moved away about five years ago, so I know how that works. :-( They didn't move very far away, so I still get to see him a lot. I still feel I'm missing out on a lot, though. And it hurts not being able to show him that I love him every day.

Basicly, I think every parent that have lived together with their children for as much as only a short while get to love their children. And of those who choose to leave their children even before they are born, I think some of them regret it, and miss the child they never got to know.


---

Re:I don't think this is as big as it's been repor

[Croatian Sensation]

My friend, I believe that we're already on that slippery slope. Why is it that you find someone with a terrible genetic disease worth less than someone with a hair colour that we may not like.

At which point do we draw the line? Should we allow people to kill their babies if they'll have large noses? Well, the kid will be made fun of, and he'll be better off if he was never born. How about this one; he's going to be born blind due to some terrible genetic disease. Maybe it's better that we don't bring him into this world. For we all know how worthless blind people are.

Paint it however you like, choosing the embryos to use for implantation based on genetic screening is nothing less than what your mentor Joseph Mengele did a handful of decades ago. After all, he was doing it to benefit the entire human race. Wasn't he?

Re:Where is the line drawn?

[_UnderTow_]

> Now I admit, chemotherapy for a child (or > anyone) is unpleasant, but dealing with these > sorts of adversities is what makes families > closer together and is an important part of the > human experience (IMHO, btw). Yeah, taking a crapshoot on the life of your child to bring the rest of your family "closer together" sounds like a real good idea. Have you ever undergone chemo? It's not fun. I would go to _any_ length to spare my children that, and too bad if it goes against this society's outdated puritan values.

Re:Serious Ethical Questions...

[mr]

How about having a child to keep a failing marriage together?

As an extra hand on the farm?

Someone to take care of YOU when you get old?

How about the common - Didn't pull out in time.

Are you willing to address these 'excellent reasons' for conception 1st?

>we can really take a look at what it means for everyone involved, the family, the children, and the human race...

If you gave a DAMN About the human race, you'd ask about overpopulation and resource consumption.

More embryos discarded as trash...

[Goldenhelix]

It is ashame that once a child is born it's "wrong" to kill it, yet once it is concieved (in vitro or in utero) it's perfectly "O.K." to flush it down the toilet if we don't "like" it.

Wow, I'm glad I live in America we All people are created equal! (Just as long as created means once the person is delivered to his/her mother...)

Hehe, let's all put our pretend glasses on and say that there IS NO BABY until we see it's heiny spanked and him/her screaming in the delivery room!

By the way babies are his/her at the time of conception! I thought Biology was required in highschool?

And your credentials are....

[ChrisGoodwin]

Dr. Cow, is it?

Suppose you tell us where you went to medical school? Suppose you tell us where you did your residency, and your internship? And suppose you cite some research that shows this?

Or suppose you shut the hell up?
--

Semantics?

[CerebusUS]

From the article:
The baby, Adam Nash, was born in Englewood, Colo., on Aug. 29. Adam was conceived in a laboratory dish along with several other embryos, and genetic tests conducted a short time later showed that only his tissues matched those of his 6-year-old sister, Molly, who has a deadly blood disease.

The Nashes had been hoping to have more children but had decided against it because there was a one-in- four chance that the infant would have the same illness as Molly. Although the disease can be detected before birth and an affected fetus aborted, Mrs. Nash said, "I could not have done that." The preimplantation genetic diagnosis allowed the Nashes to select an embryo that did not have Fanconi anemia but shared Molly's tissue type.

What is the difference between conceiving an embryo the old fashioned way and aborting it after testing if it shown to carry a disease and conceiving several in a lab environment and discarding the ones not needed?

Lest you think this is flame-bait: I'm firmly pro-choice and I vote that way. I personally don't have a problem with either of the two scenarios I've presented above.

Re:It IS right

[nickco3]

> We can't play with the natural balance of life,
> the natural course that life takes. It's not
> right.

What a load of rubbish! We interfere with nature all the time. Medicine is entirely and completely devoted to interrupting the "natural course that life takes", that is it's sole purpose.

Remember "natural" != "good". Earthquakes, exploding volcanoes and viruses are all natural. Mother Nature can be a right bitch when the mood takes her.

Registration--NOT

[Stavr0]

The story is at the NY Times, free registration is NOT required.

I wonder how come this isn't widely known yet ... s/www.nytimes.com/channel.nytimes.com/
---

Re:From other sources...

[billybob2001]

Here

Re:The wonders of modern science.

[bellings]

If something is scientifically possible, then it should automatically be moral and good.

Damn it! Why doesn't slashdot have +1 troll?

Re:This is getting bad!

[QuonsetTheHut]

What's so different about selectively breeding embryos for parts for humans already born, than selectively breeding grown adults for replacement parts for the rich and politically connected? I see a deeply disturbing trend here, where not only the unborn, but potentially the young and even adults are merely regarded as possible replacement parts. It's better to leave 'playing God' to the expert, God himself.

Re:10 Years From Now.

[I R A Aggie]

And from that day forward, little Johnny had to live with the knowledge that were it not for some quirk of fate, his parents wouldn't have had him.

Three days later, little Johnny obtains a large-calibre hand gun, and blows away his entire family.

Sad, very sad.

James

Re:This is getting bad!

[Placido]

First off you've started that argument with a flawed statement and I quote..."Think of any disease you've had in your lifetime..." Um, unfortunately enough the poor girl was DYING so maybe you should restate that as, "Think of any death you've had in your lifetime..." and as far as I can tell, chances are it doesn't make you a better person.
Next off you suddenly jump from an argument entitled:
'Lets choose a type of child to save someone else'
to 'Lets abort this child'.
Unh????! I'm sorry mate but you've completely jumped tracks...in fact, you've stopped the train, shot the driver and blown up the rails.
Anyway! I'll take this chance to say that this technology is like every other technology....neither good or evil....it's the people that use the technology who are good or evil. It's been repeated throughout history...gunpowder, cannons, muskets, computers, rockets, planes, cars....and on and on... I'm going to go and protest about our rights on the internet because they'll be using that power to abort children. Yours, D.

Re:It IS right

[GigsVT]

can be abused, such as choosing the eye colour of your child, the sex of your child etc. etc. This is just plain stupid, and anyone else who thinks otherwise, just post a comment

Why does it matter? Who cares if we genetically create better (or customized) people? We choose the sex of chickens by controlling egg temperature, and we have done it for years!

I am SO SICK of these people yelling about "playing god". We have been playing god ever since we learned how to harness fire and sharpen sticks. This is just another step in our evolution.
-

Because people will just follow the trend

[flatpack]

And what the hell is so wrong with selecting a child that will be smarter, better looking, and healthy?

It'll be like fashion - a small number of individuals and media outlets determining what is "in" at the moment, and people will base their desires for their children on that. If you look at the names that are given to kids you see the same thing - certain names become briefly popular whilst someone with that name is famous, and then it dies out again.

It'll be a nation of celebrity clones endorsed by glossy magazines. Is this really what you want?

Re:Because people will just follow the trend

[GigsVT]

t'll be a nation of celebrity clones endorsed by glossy magazines. Is this really what you want?

And how is this different from what we have now? Like you said, parents already have a good measure of control of certain things that are influenced by popular culture, such as names, and closer to the topic, circumcision, since you can change your name, but you can never grow a foreskin back. What is wrong with extending this? In a way it doesn't matter. Even if we all decide it's morally wrong, and congress decides it's morally wrong, so long as the technology is available, there will be a black market. Think abortion.
-

Re:Because people will just follow the trend

[flatpack]

And how is this different from what we have now?

Errm, people able to pick characteristics at the genetic level is a hell of a lot different from what we have now. Your phenotype has a hell of a lot more influence on your life than your name or whether you're circumcised does.

Even if we all decide it's morally wrong, and congress decides it's morally wrong, so long as the technology is available, there will be a black market. Think abortion.

But a black market can be shut down, and doesn't provide the same kind of saturation cover that a legal market would. Whilst the opportunity might be there for a few couples, it wouldn't result in the same kind of loss of genetic diversity we would otherwise see.

Gattaca

[HL]

Dr. Wagner said 10 other families were preparing to use the procedure, to have babies who would be free of genetic disorders carried by the parents

Ever watched Gattaca? That film only saw a world with perfect men from the view of an "imperfect" person, if you will; what would the world be like for the parents of the perfect humans, when the parents grow old?

Re:Gattaca

[HL]

My heart rate is actually a little quick today; I've had a little too much caffeine. I still thought that film was good, but, of course, you need a brain in order to enjoy it... (Sorry, couldn't resist)

Re:10 Years From Now.

[MPolo]

Of course, they created 15 embryos to guarantee a match for Molly, of which 14 were destroyed. That is, the mother had 14 in vitro abortions and then goes on about how she could never have an abortion.

This is so cool!

[Travoltus]

Now we can clone human beings like livestock and cut them up for parts and stuff. Generation X voters will make that possible. Thank god for Gen-X, without them we'd never be able to get this past the public!
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,

Re:From other sources...

[billybob2001]

Apparently, the embryo was chosen as having the best chance, not no chance of developing the disease.

Anyway, there were 14 other embryos passed over, so ethically, they would always be available in the future.

Surely they would not have been simply discarded in a civilized society.

VERY Slippery Slope

[Sea-Wolf]

A couple of people have raised to possibilty of this type of procedure being used to select characteristics such as height, eye color and intelligence. It's probably safe to say that the only real reason it hasn't happened is expense and the fact that those gene sequences are not pinned down perfectly yet. What's going to happen when they are? More disturbingly, what's going to happen when we have the black couple who want a child with light skin? Think that's outrageous? I don't even want to think about what's going to happen when the various sequences that define homosexuality are finally pinned down. We may end up creating a 'master race' without Hilter's help.

Re:It IS right (not)

[Derwen]

Why does it matter? Who cares if we genetically create better (or customized) people? We choose the sex of chickens by controlling egg temperature, and we have done it for years!

hmm, chickens!=human beings*
Of course many slashdotters hold strange views of the world around them, but equating moral choices about people with agribusiness techniques for increasing commodities (chickens) is towards the more eccentric end of the scale.

This is just another step in our evolution.

I think that somewhere between me and you evolution has forked. Do not panic as the GPL allows for this, one day your offspring will be reabsorbed into the main codebase.

* I am not implying that chickens should not be accorded rights, just that they are not identical with human beings. So any chickens reading this please do not flame me (or throw any eggs).
- Derwen

Re:Playing the Hand You're Deal (or Rigging the Ga

[burris]

You can argue that its already starting, with the trade in black-market organs (particularly kidneys) harvested from the 3rd world for 1st world clients. That's bad (and if you think those people really are giving them up by their free will, dream on).

What kind of nonsense is this? Do you actually have any evidence for this or are you merely spouting hearsay, rumors, and urban legends? Last time I checked, an organ transplant was still a very serious and complicated procedure. Do you really think the doctors and hospitals involved in such transplants are buying human organs off the backs of trucks? If you believe that then I can get you a great deal on a brain transplant.

Burris

Getting the best kid is the *whole* point

[Anonymous Coward]

What do people think the whole dating game / mating ritual thing is? People try to pick mates that will pass on the best traits to their children. Most things that make people attractive (tall, young, clear skin, good physique, whatever) are really related to overall health and size. Other traits that people like, such as intelligence, sense of humor, etc., are also things they want in their kids.

If people (mostly women) didn't want the best shot at getting top of the line kids they would fuck anyone. Excluding deviant behavier, even men have standards.

Why not go the next step? Why make it a gamble? Just because you married a smart tall guy, why not make sure you get smart tall kids? For about a years worth of college tuition you can guarantee that you have top shelf kids.

(Of course until there are some SERIOUS advances in genetics none of these types of trait selection will be possible, but for now at least you can be sure your kid won't get your mate's annoying Mendelian disorder).

Re:Getting the best kid is the *whole* point

[I R A Aggie]

What do people think the whole dating game / mating ritual thing is? People try to pick mates that will pass on the best traits to their children.

That isn't all. It's also about being able to provide: can he provide a good living and be a good father? can she help me raise these children and be a good mother?

Fortunately, we no longer need to have sex. That whole sex thing needs to be kiboshed. We have better ways of selecting which genetic sets should be matched up than sheer luck and random chances. Screen everyone's genetic makeup, then match 'em up. When the women want to have children, do the artifical insemination with the appropriate sperm donor(s).

Perfect children, every time. Just add water.

James

Re:Getting the best kid is the *whole* point

[Scarblac]

People try to pick mates that will pass on the best traits to their children. Most things that make people attractive (tall, young, clear skin, good physique, whatever) are really related to overall health and size.

That's right. People fall in love with young people because they want their babies to be young.

Re:New frontiers

[pallex]

They knew which would die. The question was whether or not to let them both die.

It seemed strange to me to bring them to England, then complain when the judgement went the obvious way - to save one of them. What was the alternative? To let them both die? Why bring them to a hospital in England for that? They could have both died where they were.

Clue: The parents are religious.

Re:10 Years From Now.

[MrShiny]

>And from that day forward, little Johnny had to live with the knowledge that were it not for some quirk of fate, his parents wouldn't have had him.

Well, one way of looking at things is that every event is the result of an infinite number of infinitecimally unlikely events that occured before it. Another way is that everything that happens is inevitable and the concept of "luck" is an illusion.

Either way, it's rather silly thinking about the likelyhood of you being a different person or not existing at all. You just Are(TM).. that's all there is to it.

The people in this article seem like caring and devoted parents and I'm sure they will give all their love to both of their children. So why does it matter why they had them? They had the choice between two babies or no babies.. what would you choose?

People shouldn't be so concerned with WHY they exist.. just worry about existing.

Re:Playing the Hand You're Deal (or Rigging the Ga

[American AC in Paris]

Do what you can for yourself. But the minute you start messing with other people's lives to cover for your mistakes (or hell, even to cover for the screwy hand of Fate), well, that's a line I think we better not cross.

That's a line we've been crossing ever since the dawn of civilization; the only difference now is that we have another way of doing it. Though it's a decidedly more advanced, subtle form of controlling the lives of others than, say, a rock afixed firmly to the end of a stick, that's not to say that one can no longer use a rock tied to a stick to mess with other people's lives for your own benefit.

We humans (especially Westerners, and particularly Americans) like to cheat. We don't like to play the hand Fate deals us, so we dicker, moan, whine, and complain to the dealer, while we busily re-arrange the cards to our liking, then say, "Oh, jeeze, look what I've got!" I'm all for stacking the deck in your favor, don't get me wrong. Transplants, drug therapy, all sorts of operations and treatments, hell, they're great.

Cheating is an interesting angle on the issue. Here's a question: how is it that we are "cheating Fate"? If "Fate" really is the driving force of life, why is it that "Fate" wasn't the one that handed this couple the opportunity to use science to concieve a child that a) they wanted and b) would save the life of their daughter? If such a scientific discovery is to be deemed "cheating Fate", then I'd advise that unless one is already walking barefoot and naked to and from work, it'd be best to stop using artificial means of transportation and human-crafted articles of clothing to thumb one's nose at Fate and the perfectly good body Fate gave you in the first place.

What bothers me is that we're rapidly approaching the point where we start to use other people as parts banks for ourselves. "Oops, drank too much liquor over the last 10 years, better warm up that clone I had growing in the bank, I need a new liver..."

Again, you're a bit late on this one. We are already using other people for this end. The nice thing about the advancement of this technology is that it may be possible to reproduce specific organs independent of a human body to avoid the messy matter of wasting away for years until the suitable voluntary donor or tragic automobile-accident victim hopefully fills your organ needs. Don't even start to think of the emotional distress of your body rejecting such a precious thing as some other person's donated organ.

In short, if Fate, God, or whomever else you put your faith in, had deemed that we were not to do what we are able to do today, they never would have given us the capacity to do it in the first place. The Higher Power is pretty universally all-knowing and all-powerful, whatever your Higher Power may be. The Higher Power is perfectly capable of stepping in at any time and ending our little games; what's more, the Higher Power probably has a bit better idea of exactly what the Higher Power wants than any of the Higher Power's creations may have.

Yeah what about them?

[Goldenhelix]

It sickens me that all the whining that goes on these days are for civil rights and human rights and blah blah blah freedom of choice! (which is all fine and everything!), yet we "trash" our embryos just because we don't "need" them... Well I'm whining for someone else for a change! I think we need laws protecting those children "concieved" in America, not just born. (Shouts to all the unborn people in heaven, the people who didn't have a chance!) All people were CREATED equal.

Read a little more closely...

[rangek]

Now, I haven't made up my mind about what i think about all this yet, so I am not saying your conclusion is wrong as far as whether this is right or wrong. I just want to make sure we all have the facts straight.

as a *side effect* of that, the life of their daughter can be saved

But it wasn't a side-effect. There were two selection criteria the embryos had to pass:

1. Must not have the disease
2. Must be a tissue match

So viable, healthy embryos were discarded. Embryos that were perfectly healthly and normal. That throws a wrench in the cogs, eh? And it is what makes me lean to the "this was pretty fucked up" side of things.

BTW I live like 2 miles from where they did this... crazy...

Re:10 Years From Now.

[cburley]

A ball of cells containing approximately 8 cells is destroyed and this is an abortion?

By those who consider the moment of conception to be the most clear delineation of when a new human life begins, yes.

This four-part series of articles contains the best encapsulation of the logic of many of the views people hold regarding abortion that I've seen on the web, and it comes down on the conception side of things, but not without offering clear reasoning for it (with which you can agree or disagree, of course). Definitely worth reading carefully and thinking through. Even if it doesn't change your mind, it will likely give your current beliefs greater clarity, if you're interested in that sort of thing. HTH.

Guilt-ridden nonsense

[Trespass]

The exploitation of the poor by the rich is not tied to particular technology, of for that matter a particular epoch in time. Whether you can paraphrase "there are some things man was not meant to know" with a straight face is irrelevant to the underlying issues of colonialism actually involved. The analogy you use to carnival games is faulty. Life is more like a mixture of Kriegspiel, chess, and a live jam. Advantage is morally shameful to those who don't have it. Of course people are selfish, and are sometimes cruel. I have mixed feelings about that, however... This Frankestein-esque nonsense about accepting things as they are is simply too much to swallow.

What about humanity?

[keepper]

It's funny how people, so called "liberals" and "conservatives" are so into their points that they forget that the answer to problems is never one which falls squarely on one side.

People forget that procedures like these have greater implications than they appear to have. You might say that , well, this is not bringing a child into this world "for parts", it's just to save another life.

Well NEWSFLASH, once this is done, what will stop people that do think that way from doing it? you? People must never forget that sometimes the seemenly good uses of technology, have more drawbacks than actual benefits.

Isn't research better spent creating the technology to reproduce human cells from someone alive than to use human reproduction as some sort of parts factory? is it just me, or is this a screwed up mentallity? come on...

It's issues like these, and the total ineptitude of the general public that does NOT make me wonder why the world is such a screwed up place.

And no, am not making a "religious" argument, if you actually knew me, am all against organized religion, but i do repect someone's right to practice it. Its just having commong sense

Technology does not make morality and ethics obsolete, and ethics and morality have nothing to do with religion. People really need to check the definition of morality again, i know it has gotten a bad name from the so called religious dumdass^H^H^H^"rightious".

this is the same mentallity, why we have to total dimwits/idiots running for president.

oh well, this is just my rant, of course am right

.

moral

1. Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character: moral scrutiny; a moral quandary.
2. Teaching or exhibiting goodness or correctness of character and behavior: a moral lesson.
3. Conforming to standards of what is right or just in behavior; virtuous: a moral life.
4. Arising from conscience or the sense of right and wrong: a moral obligation.
5. Having psychological rather than physical or tangible effects: a moral victory; moral support.

Re:Where is the line drawn?

[DrSkwid]

why does having the gene for color blindness help a man or even mankind?

it is a mistake to believe that there is a one to one mapping between genes and bodily function. The particular gene that is present in people with colour blindness might also mean that they are resistant to polio or that they are scared of heights or that their hair is greasy or any multitude of effects. That is the scary part about any sort of interference and selecting on genes being present.

It is a supreme arrogance that suggests that humans understand this stuff in completeness.

but remains so common simply because it doesn't hurt your chances of reproductive success very much to have the trait

The converse is also true - that it remains present, despite it's suposed negative impact, because of it' positive effect on reproductive capability. Think about brightly coloured parrots or male peacocks. Traits that look obviously negative to survival chances via predation but increase the chances of reproduction.

The two places to draw the line are all or nothing because anything in between is applied from the wrong conclusions anyway.
.oO0Oo.

Re:This is getting bad!

[Mr. Slippery]

Think of any disease that you've had in your lifetime... Did it make you a worse person? Chances are it made you better! Our tribulations define our character more than our triumphs.

Oh, bullshit. Having to have my legs twisted into alignment (I was born "pigeon toed") as an infant didn't make me a better person. Getting teeth yanked and the rest re-arranged by braces didn't improve my personality one whit. A lifetime of respiratory allergies hasn't taugh me any moral lessons.

Sometimes that which doesn't kill us doesn't make us stronger either - it just annoys the fsck out of us instead.

Who decided that we should play God and decide who should or shouldn't be born?

Your question assumes that there is a "someone" to be born at that state. But a few cells is not a "someone". It can be argued that a "someone" doesn't happen until well after an infant is born; it takes experience of the world to make a "someone" - an blank brain does not a person make.

Deciding after a few cell divisions whether development will progress towards a "someone" is no different than deciding pre-conception; by your thinking, am I deciding "who should or shouldn't be born" by using a condom?

Funny, I was thinking exactly the opposite

[Anonymous Coward]

Daughter: It's your turn to take out the trash. Son: I don't feel like it. You do it. Daughter: I did it yesterday. You never do anything. Son: You wouldn't even _be_ here to take out the trash if it weren't for me. Don't you think you owe me taking out the trash? Daughter: Uhhh... Next day---- Son: I want to watch my TV show. Daughter: I want to watch mine. Son: You wouldn't even _be_here to watch TV... ad infinitum

Re:Funny, I was thinking exactly the opposite

[istartedi]

Out of all the direct responses, yours was the most intriguing.

Re:The wonders of modern science.

[PieceMaker]

Morality has become an outdated concept. [...]
Morality [... isn't] relevant to the fast-changing modern world.

I agree with almost all of your comments, but these two statements are silly.

We will never be able to escape morality as long as we are able to think independently and are faced with choices on what courses of action we should take at any given moment. What is made possible by science is one thing. What courses of action we take is another. Science makes it possible to provide nearly infinate energy to power our world, as well as to level a city with a single bomb.

If science makes it possible to engineer people to fill specific roles in society on the premise it will make for a greater collective happiness, should we do it? If you haven't read it, check out "Brave New World."

The point is, we will always have choices before us. Science will continue to provide more and newer choices to us. We still have to choose what actions will be good or bad. Morality is not an outdated concept.

Note, I am distinquishing morality from religion. Religion provides a basis for establishing a morality, but it is not the only source for it.

We should celebrate this medical innovation as a miracle of science which it clearly is, rather than berating it and questioning it on moral grounds.

I agree we should celebrate the innovation, but I do not think we should refrain from questioning its potential application.

Re:New frontiers

[TenDimensions]

"A couple conceived their son in vitro, no big deal -- but they chose that particular embryo because its tissue type would provide a match for their dying 6-year-old daughter."

It's interesting that not very long ago in vitro fertilization was a HUGE deal. Huh... Now it's "no big deal" and no one in this discussion argued with that.

Give it 10 or 15 years and this will no longer be a big deal either. Everyone will be doing it and no one will be able to comprehend how we ever got by before genetic screening.

Re:10 Years From Now.

[sjames]

Of course, they created 15 embryos to guarantee a match for Molly, of which 14 were destroyed. That is, the mother had 14 in vitro abortions and then goes on about how she could never have an abortion.

She was probably working under the premise that an abortion is a positive action to end life while not implanting the 14 embryos was passive.

It is also similar to what happens in nature all the time. A natural extension of your argument is that any refusal of a sex act that could lead to a baby is an abortion. After all, that ovum had full potential to become a human life, but was cruelly denied.

Story missing all the parts that make it bad

[Benjamin Shniper]

As a pro-life advocate (perhaps rare on slashdot, I don't know) I like to believe that society's rulees will help the unborn as well.

Let me be straight about this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/health/newsid_ 954000/954408.stm

This story entitled "baby created to save older sister" is obviously biased the other way, but it has a few facts that are missing.

1.Children with Fanconi anaemia suffer from severe bleeding and immune system disorders and invariably die by the time they reach eight or nine.

2.Life spokesman Kevin Male added: "Adam was the fifteenth embryo created which meant fourteen people were killed before him. In essence a white coated technician brought this human being into the world simply as a means to an end."

3.In the UK, PGD [preimplantation genetic diagnosis ] has been used in five clinics for the past 10 years. The technique has resulted in the birth of about 20 healthy babies, who would otherwise have been at risk of serious genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis or haemophilia.

Is my position this extreme?
Yes.

Are we so moral that bringing human life to an end at this stage is justifiable?

-Ben

Re:Story missing all the parts that make it bad

[FFFish]

What makes me shake my head in wonderment is that so many people who will go up in arms about this embryo-selection deal, are also using the birth control pill.

A pill which operates, in part, by causing abortions. Every once in a while an egg *will* be released and it *will* be fertilized... but it *will* not find the uterus a receptive place because the Pill makes it difficult to implant, and it *will* be flushed out of the system when the woman has her period.

These hypocrites routinely abort their mistakes. They just don't realize it.

And even those that don't use the Pill are aborting: the chances are actually *against* a fertilized egg being able to implant successfully. That's why the no-protection sex results in pregnancy only eighty-five percent of the time.

Being a blastocyte is a bitch. Doesn't much matter if you're in a uterus or in a test tube: you stand a good chance of dying.

Ah, but in one case it's *nature* killing them off... in the other case, it's those evile mean nasty white-coated lab techs.

Strange, however, that they become wonderful caring saviours when they stop a cancer or repair a heart. It's nature that's evile and nasty when it's an adult body being killed off...

Pshaw, I say.

Let's allow selective abortion to about the age of thirteen. We all know that most kids are pretty beastly. [grin]

--

Re:10 Years From Now.

[SlashDread]

Wrong.

The parents explicitly stated they had a child wish already.
The boy is NOT a by-product for a medicine, he just has been chosen from a bunch of cells cause he could provide.

But the child wish was already there.

Besides, as it 'hard to say what the psycholgical effect will be' as you agree upon, why say it will not be positive?

Apparently you think thats easy to say, which says a whole deal more about your mindset, then about the boys.

Gr Richard
ps q: What will be psychological effects be of knowing you're the son of Micheal jackson?
a: Nobody freaking knows.

Re:This is ethical

[Zelphyr]

Some people may scream about ethics but I imagine this type of thing happens more than people think. I remember a TV show several years back about a family who did the same thing to save their daughter.

This is ethical

[Scarblac]

Yes, of course there are ethical questions surrounding this. But as far as I can see the parents are absolutely aware of that, and they've made a very sensible choice.

Consider: they already wanted more children, but never could, because they might be born with the same disease. For the last three years they have been looking for a solution. There is a new technique to select embryos that don't have the disease. This has ethical problems in its own right, but I think it is sensible to allow it in the case of a lethal disease, and that is pretty normal nowadays. Next, as a *side effect* of that, the life of their daughter can be saved with tissue that would normally be *discarded*.

It would be different if they hadn't thought about this, if they might not have taken a second kid otherwise, if the only kid they could select with the right tissue would have to live with some other problem, if the disease wasn't lethal, or if the tissue could instead be used to cure a more critical case. But those are not the case.

I would say this ethical problem is easy. They made the right choice. People who shout "Ethics!" have just not read the article.

Right

[James Foster]

Thats exactly right -- at least, in my opinion it is. ;]

Re:It IS right

[G-funk]

Hear hear!

Is it really that bad that john and jane doe can one day have one boy and one girl instead of rolling the dice?

If one day I can have my wife tested at 6 weeks and we can find out they child will have cerebral palsy or muscular distrophy, don't you guys think it's ok to "play god" and teminate it, so as not to force a path of full-time care/ early death in the family???

And what about me? I don't believe there is a god. You heard me. So how can I play god? All I want to do is beat chance. Of course we won't get into chaos theory :)

Gfunk007

Re:The wonders of modern science.

[Lita Juarez]

to say that "anything that can be done should be done, no matter what the consequenses" sounds like a worse alternative

But everything should be tried at least once. To use the examples of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which you quoted, the nuclear bomb was shown to be too extreme for everyday use, so this scientific idea Darwinated. This doesn't necessarily mean that nuclear weapons are in any way wrong or immoral, it just means that they weren't useful in everyday life. In fact, it could even be argued that nuclear weapons were a good thing, since the nuclear deterrent probably prevented many smaller conflicts from occuring and thus prevented further loss of life.

Every scientific innovation should be given the chance to prove its value to the human race. It is a crime to never give an idea to demonstrate its worth, simply on the basis that it may be considered immoral.

Re:The wonders of modern science.

[Doug Neal]

I completely agree with you. This is indicative of a significant change in humans, where we are becoming less dependent on pure natural selection to evolve and become resistant to diseases, and more capable of using technology to repair our defects.

I have no time here for religious people who automatically condemn scientific and medical breakthroughs as being against God's will, or whatever. Advances in scientific and medical knowledge and understanding just make God more and more redundant.

Re:I know *exactly * where this is heading

[B'Trey]

Uh, that's one of the reasons for doing genetic testing. Also quoting from the article: When the embryos reach the eight-cell stage, one cell is removed and tested genetically, a procedure called preimplantation genetic diagnosis. The testing is used to select embryos that do not have the same genetic disease as the sibling, but do have tissue compatible for transplant.

Re:The wonders of modern science.

[Slowping]

> If something is scientifically possible, then it should automatically be moral and good.

I think that this case is perfectly ethical and moral, and I agree with Lita's oppinion on this. There is a difference between scientific possibility, and our application of that possiblity.

Someone mentioned the two nuclear bombs that the US dropped on Japan. No, it is not ethical and not moral to kill thousands of people. But yes, there is good that can come from nuclear physics. The scientific capability of splitting an atom to obtain energy is good. Using it to kill people is bad.

When primitive civilization realized the scientific capability of creating a sharp edge, that is good. It is the foundation of many of the manufacturing techniques we enjoy today. Driving that sharp edge into someone to harm them is bad.

The problem isn't science. The moral and ethical problems are in society and humanity as a whole. Science and discovery are always good. It is the amoral and unethical ways in which we obtain and utilize that science that is the problem. With or without science, the unethical and amoral problems of humanity still exist.

Re:10 Years From Now.

[AndersW]

"[...]Johnny had to live with the knowledge that were it not for some quirk of fate, his parents wouldn't have had him."

Duh. This is true for every single child born. If it wasn't for some quirk of fate, my parents would never have met. If it wasn't for some quirk of fate, the "sperm that became me" would have missed its target. If it wasn't for some quirk of fate, I might have died from a heart disease soon after I was born...

I think it's safe to say that as long as the parents actually love little Johnny, the psychological impact will be negligible.

All doctors play god - That's their f****ng job!

[Amrik]

Why is it that everytime doctors do something that pushes the envelope they get accused of 'playing god'. *ALL* medical science is playing god. If people want to respect god's will they must refuse *all* medical intervention and drugs and let 'nature' take it's course (and die probably).

BUT after saying all that I think widespread genetic selection in the general population is probably a bad thing because it will reduce genetic diversity. This will make us very susceptible to global pandemics which could wipe *everbody* out because we're all too similar.

To be ethical, or not to be ethical...

[tao]

I'm in general against prenatal analysis, BUT: consider that if they had not done this, they already living daughter would have died. Instead, they managed to save her life. They didn't chose this particular featus because of any superhuman capabilities, they chose it because it had the capability to save the life of their daughter. Rather than taking a chance, letting nature take its course and probably end up with another child that'd die within a few years in the same disease, they managed to put another child to life which was healthy and at the same time rescue their already existing.

Yes, it's a bitchingly hard issue. But, I'd say that it would've been equally unethical to let their daughter die eventhough a way existed to save her.

This is not the use of genetic analysis we need to beware. It's the genetic engineering specifically made for breeding out the weakest for "their own best"...

Isnt this...

[Lord Bitman]

2+ years-old news?

Re: Isnt this...

[Seehund]

Yes, with emphasis on the "+". It's 12 years old "news".

See what Wagner writes himself in an article in Am. J. Pediatr. Hematol. Oncol. 15(2):169-74.
That article doesn't cover the genetic screening of MHC/HLA types, but that's everyday procedure at any clinical lab at any hospital in the civilised world.

Still, I suppose this article appeals to tabloids like /. and their readers who get extatic when they see words like "genes" and "DNA".
If /. necessarily must cover "Science", make more categories. This would be fitting in such a general category as "Medicine", though I'd like to see it in "Clinical Immunology", "Clinical Hematology" or "Oncology"... ;)

.-. .- -.. .. --- -....- .- -.- - .. ...- .. - .-.- - ...-.-

Re:New frontiers

[zoefff]

I think the decision made by the court in England is correct (in my point of view). In this case the investigation of the genes is also needed to save a life (which is good), but it is a first of a kind. Ethical issues like choosing attributes of a human being are possible, but are they desirable. This one is the first of a process which is ending with you or me at the doctors desk 'designing' our breed. And a female-male child is not necessary anymore. Being a clone of your father,mother, or a child of a homosexual couple will be possible.
Of all those possibilities, I think that cloning is a bad thing. Certainly on a large scale: it makes a living species vunerable for deceases. See the decease as a script kiddie with a list of which OS is running where. Once he got a tool he can break in anywhere he wants.

I know *exactly * where this is heading

[gad_zuki!]

Say it with me, "Geneticaly-Designed Placenta Soup." Yummy.

Re:I know *exactly * where this is heading

[dkjih]

To quote from NYTImes:

Doctors do not yet know whether Adam's cells will cure his sister, who has Fanconi anemia, a rare, inherited disease that often leads to leukemia

So lets hope Adam don't develop Fanconi amemia him self....

Re:10 Years From Now.

[Dan D.]

Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is good,
every sperm is useful, in your neighborhood.

Let the heathens spill theirs on the dusty ground,
God will strike them down for each sperm that can't be found.

Monty Python, "The Meaning of Life"

Re:Read a little more closely...numbers

[twitter]

That was at least five embrios that were killed. Naturaly, the chance of having a child with a disease was 1/4. The achieved result, if the cure really works is 2/7, a little better. If the cure fails, well.

It's all goulish to me.

Re:Mistakes

[sharkey]

Very, very true. Our daughter was born in August. We had planned on waiting another year or two before having children, so that we were more settled in with our lives together, in our new home and careers, but we made just such a "mistake."

It was the best mistake we EVER made.


--

Re:The wonders of modern science.

[sjames]

"Do what thou wilt etc etc" ???

If you read more carefully, you will find that Will is always capitalised. That is meant to distinguish it from the lesser will or want. You dismiss an entire philosophy based on an imperfect understanding of a single phrase. Also, the phrase doesn't originate with Satanists (who typically don't believe in Satan and are also not what you think!) in the first place.

Third-World Back-Alley Organ Transplants

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US people needing organs are put on a variety of lists (depending on how badly the organ is needed, etc.) and matches are selected in a somewhat impartial way. It is sometimes possible to get a non vital organ (kidney etc) from a relative. But it is strictly illegal in the US to sell organs.

However, in some countries, you have to get your own organs. Supposedly you can get from organs through purchase. Whether people in the US actually go to seedy third-world countries to get back-alley organ transplants is a subject of some discussion. Since it is illegal under US law people are not going to advertise it.

However, I do know for a fact that, as of the 1980's, biological supply companies obtained human skeletons from countries like India. People would sign a contract selling their skeleton, and it would be removed and preserved after death. This is the source of that skeleton that you may have seen hanging in a closet in your high school Biology class (assuming your school didn't go the cheap way and get a plastic replica). Trading in skeletons was, and so far as I know, still is legal in the US. Trading in living organs is not.

So, if a poor person is willing to sell his skeleton, I don't see why he wouldn't be willing to sell his corneas, liver, kidneys, or whatever else. So I suspect this is actually done to some extent. (There are of course technical difficulties which make it hard to get some of these organs in a useful state, since you generally don't know when you're going to die.)

Re:10 Years From Now.

[wsdorsey]

I read about this story somewhere a couple of days ago (can't remember where) and in that version, it mentioned that the parents had planned on having more than one child before the first one got sick. So this way they got to have another kid, and saved the first one in the process. Killed two birds with on stone, so to speak.

-Dorsey

Re:The wonders of modern science.

[Vryl]

Hrrmm ... could have sworn I quoted it in full in another part of the site ... do a search ...

OK..What About The Newborn...

[pabstblueribbon]

If this kid they had genetically crafted from the parents already fucked up cells has the same traits as his sisters, then wouldn't it make sense to think this kid will also be prone to the same exact disease which he was born to fix in his older sister? So basically this new kid will have to have his parents bust another embryo out thats the same as him, thus creating a whole strain of genetically messed up people who will keep on havin babies that will keep on havin this blood disease. And what about down the road..will the kids have fights like "Mommy only had you so that I could live..so mommy likes me best"?? By the way..I'm all about havin ghetto fabulous children..it'd just be weird bein a big white bald guy with black kids and a white mother...I could just see the made-for-TV movie now.

Re:OK..What About The Newborn...

[envisionary]

Ummm, have you ever studied biology, not to mention read the article?

First he was screened to see if he did not have the disease and that his tissue was compatible.

Second, there is such a thing as genes in genetics. These genes involve chromosomes mainly of two types X and Y. The parents each lend traits to the offspring. Let us take a simple example (forgive me for trying to remember high school biology- back in the day yo) of 1 trait. You set up a simple block diagram and you see:

x y
x xx xy

x xx xy

Wow! in this case he would have only a 50% chance of getting the "disease" assuming the disease was on the y chromosome. Hmmm? Are we learning?

Note:This may not be perfect, but give me a break, I took that class in high school how long ago?

Re: Cloning.

[amchugh]

I think the author maybe was talking about some kind of funky brain transplant. What do you think the morality implications would be of intentionally growing a clone of yourself with a rudimentary brains stem, and no brain to use for parts?

Re:It IS right

[Lurker187]

If one day I can have my wife tested at 6 weeks and we can find out they child will have cerebral palsy or muscular distrophy, don't you guys think it's ok to "play god" and teminate it, so as not to force a path of full-time care/ early death in the family???

I think we'll have to mature as a society and learn to make these kinds of choices soon. I don't think we would be able to restrict parents from choosing for certain genetic tendencies, at least not for long. But while I'm not certain that all genetic selection is evil and must be stopped, your comment reminded me that based on your approach, Stephen Hawking would never have been born.

That's a great idea

[twitter]

I'm glad people are doing this, and hope the stem cell and clone research move along quickly. It gets around the goulish business of making human embrios for parts.

Re:The wonders of modern science.

[bidule]

I agree that it is good, although on the verge of being bad. But I think you're waxing it a little too hard.

If something is scientifically possible, then it should automatically be moral and good.

It is scientifically possible to cause a thermonuclear explosion in the middle of any city. Some delude themselves that science is always evil, others that it is always good. The concept of good or evil cannot be applied to science. On this point, science is like computer: they both don't like to be anthropomorphized. ;o)

I find it disappointing that our moral guardians are deciding that human cloning is wrong and immoral, and I'll never get the chance to clone myself and live beyond my normal lifespan.

This is so evil it must be trolling.
Is it morally right to brainwash your own kid, forcing him to think exaclty like you, replacing his memories by your own? Can it be morally right to discriminate against a child because his genes matches yours? If this clone is legally you, should you be forbidden to maim yourself? Such a moral is dangerous because it belittles the value of human life.

Recentering on topic, some culture having different ethics might decide that some non-life-threatening selection (like sex) are morally right. This is where the application of science gets scary.

Re:Genetics Inches Forward

[Nos.]

Its amazing the colossal leap people are taking with this! The parents did want another child, but the chances were to great (1/4?) of the same genetic defect appearing. They found a way to have another child. As a bonus, they were able to use typically discarded material (umbilical and placenta blood) to give their daughter a better chance at a healthy full life.

Talking about harvesting organs is a huge leap from what actually happened here. I can see absolutely nothing morally or ethically wrong with what happened here. I applaud the doctors who were able to come up with this technique! I don't see the day coming in my lifetime where an embryo is grown specifically for the purpose of having genetically matched organs. I'm sure it will be discussed to no end over the next 100 years, but lets face it, the controversy over cloning a sheep should give you a clue that this won't be happening for a LONG time.

Super Humans

[CukO]

I think that humans should just get all of this ethics crap out of the way and start genetically engineering disease free superhumans as evolution is the ultimate goal of the human race and this is the fastest way to achieve it.
The only people that are afraid of this change are those who will be in the last generation of normal humans who will feel like they have been superseeded, so what.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, so go ahead and make some superhumans already. It is time for mankind to take the next big step. This is the first time in history we have a technology that can advance man to a new age and we are just sitting on it and arguing about whether it is a good or a bad thing. Ultimately it will be a good thing, like it or not.

Naturally I expect all the superhumans to be based on Claudia Schiffer with 0% conscience and 100% sex drive.

Maybe we could get rid of the Microsoft gene that seems to be apparent in 90% of the population, and is the single greatest hinderance to our evolution.

Re:All doctors play god - That's their f****ng job

[CukO]

pffft. My doctor couldn't even play Godot ;)

Human body fixed points are on the way out

[Morgaine]

I don't know why everyone gets so heated about this kind of topic. We're within sight of total positional control of atoms, which translates in the long run into being able to create just about any material structures given the required component elements.

It doesn't take much extrapolation from this to see that human bodies will not remain in their present form for long, and that in fact the word "human" itself has a rather limited lifespan. Total self-transformation for purposes of repair, special function or simply vanity is on its way --- especially the latter for most, but I bet the military is more interested in the former.

In development terms this is a long way off, but the key observation is that the difficulties seem to be just engineering ones: "merely" a lot of handle turning required, like that which turned the first transistor into today's complex computers.

In that context, minor tinkering with our biological systems as in the present topic is, well, utterly minor. If this causes a storm today, we're in for global hurricanes tomorrow.

Genetic Engineering

[Mr. Underhill]

We'd better get used to it I we wish to go on thinking of ourselves as high order animals beyond Mother Nature's reach. World population is going up, resources are staying the same or are going down. Mother Nature's all natural and oh so wholesome solution to the problem would be pretty much the same as it for the low order animals: something along the lines of war, famine, or plague. (e.g. people dieing in large numbers)

We NEED genetic engineering of food, animals and people in our species' survivial stategy portfolio to avoid Mother Nature's violent grasp. Work out the morality or face her wrath.

Re:Where is the line drawn?

[astrophysics]

> After all, it seems to me that color blindness can't help anyone, but remains so common simply because it doesn't hurt your chances of productive success very much to have the trait.

One problem is that well meaning people will say, I don't see how this could possibly be a valuable trait. However, unless we completely understand all about DNA and humans (unlikely to ever happen), we just won't know. We could very easily attempt to do good, for example by eliminating color blindness. If it turns out (I'm not saying it's true or is likely. It's just an example...) that color blindness is linked to resistance to some disease or ability of the eye to withstand larger UV fluxes, then in some unknown time in the future, then that decision to eliminate color blindness could come back to haunt us. Instead of having some people who are resistant to the disease or increased UV radiation, nobody would be. In the language of population dynamics, reducing genetic diversity will likely lead to bigger booms, but also bigger busts. Is reducing color blindness worth the risk? I don't think so. Obviously for more serious problems (e.g. diabetes) it becomes a tougher call.

Playing the Hand You're Deal (or Rigging the Game)

[trims]

I've like to make a great quote from an otherwise pretty bad movie:

"Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."
-Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) in Jurassic Park

There was a great article in Wired 6 months ago by Bill Joy (yeah, that Bill Joy), that brought up some of the issues we see here. Check it out.

Now, I don't agree with alot of what Joy postulates, but the subject needs serious consideration. NOW. Not tomorrow, not when we get around to it. Because putting off a discussion and a decision means we don't have one at all. We'll just turn around one day, and wonder, "How did we get in the fucking mess?"

I'm not really sure about this story - I don't have all the details, so I'm reserving judgement (or at least, an opinion).

We humans (especially Westerners, and particularly Americans) like to cheat. We don't like to play the hand Fate deals us, so we dicker, moan, whine, and complain to the dealer, while we busily re-arrange the cards to our liking, then say, "Oh, jeeze, look what I've got!" I'm all for stacking the deck in your favor, don't get me wrong. Transplants, drug therapy, all sorts of operations and treatments, hell, they're great.

What bothers me is that we're rapidly approaching the point where we start to use other people as parts banks for ourselves. "Oops, drank too much liquor over the last 10 years, better warm up that clone I had growing in the bank, I need a new liver..."

You can argue that its already starting, with the trade in black-market organs (particularly kidneys) harvested from the 3rd world for 1st world clients. That's bad (and if you think those people really are giving them up by their free will, dream on).

If you and the wifey are at high risk for having a kid with a major genetic problem, well, maybe you shouldn't be having kids. Adopt a kid - they're plenty available, waiting for a nice home. But, not, we're selfish. Gotta have it. And when it doesn't work out, well, whine, and try to rig the game.

Do what you can for yourself. But the minute you start messing with other people's lives to cover for your mistakes (or hell, even to cover for the screwy hand of Fate), well, that's a line I think we better not cross.

-Erik

Re:The wonders of modern science.

[Vryl]

"Do what thou wilt etc etc" ???

"Everything is permissible" ???

You are not one of those trendy satanists are you? Or do you really believe all of this? Or have I been suckered by a choice troll?

Please let it be the latter ... and we can both have a laugh.

Re:The wonders of modern science.

[mparcens]

When the atomic bomb was created and tested for the first time, they weren't sure if it would set off an uncontrollable atmospheric chain-reaction. Is that scientific innovation really necessary, if it risks humanity?

You have to draw the line somewhere, between the ideas that have some value for the human race and those that have the potential to overrun the human race. Between ideas that destroy for a scientific purpose and those ideas that destroy for the purpose of destruction. I think, in this example, that killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians crosses that border.
_________

Mistakes

[Stickerboy]

Not medical mistakes, but parental ones.

I'm talking about the "hey, we're 45 with 2 kids already, OOOOPS, we forgot the birth control kind of mistake!"

I have a pretty good idea (since I'm 9 years younger than my brother and 10 from my sister) that I was such a mistake. There are probably tens of thousands of others in the US just like me. Does that mean my parents love me any less than my siblings because I wasn't planned? No.

Does this mean the parents of that son love him any less than their daughter? No. Get off their backs.

Re:It IS right

[r-jae]

I'm sorry if sometimes I come across as a bit forceful. I try to force my opinion on others and its bad, I know, but I'll try to change in the future.

It's just that it really frustrates me. We can't play with the natural balance of life, the natural course that life takes. It's not right. Not only because it's immoral, but who knows the profound consequences it will have on the human race if we create 'custom babies'?

Variety is the spice of life. I know it's a cliche, but sometimes you have to use old sayings and old-fashioned viewpoints to put things into perspective. Just because it's new, flashy, and really cool, doesn't mean it's a good thing. Learn from the past so we can create a better future. Messing with nature (IN MY OPINION) is not only WRONG but may upset the balance of life on Earth.

Cheers,
Daniel.

--

Daniel Zeaiter
daniel@academytiles.com.au
http://www.academytiles.com.au
ICQ: 16889511

Re:It IS right

[r-jae]

Because we don't know the effects that this will have. It's not another step in anything. We've already seen in China the effects of preference of males over females. Upsetting the balance of nature is wrong. Everything on this planet is for a purpose. Nature just made us a bit too intelligent for it's own good. We're beating nature at it's own game - we're supposed to be subservant and go about our lives according to nature's plan but we've exceeded this expectation and become more advanced, creating better lives for ourselves, and letting our species flourish and multiply. This in itself is not a bad thing, but when we use our intelligent advantage to upset the balance of nature and to stop it's natural course, then we've crossed the line and we need to wake up and take a long hard look at what we're doing.

Space travel is great. Discovering more about our planet is great. Ensuring the survival of our natural environment is a good cause. Healing disease, both genetic and infectious is also a great human acheivement we should be proud of. Having the ability to choose whether our child is male or female and has green or hazel eyes is over the top and may have adverse effects.

Just my A$0.02 (worth about US$0.00000002). Comments welcome, I have no scientific evidence to back up anything I'm saying, it's called common sense (although these days it's not too common).

Cheers,
Daniel.

--

Daniel Zeaiter
daniel@academytiles.com.au
http://www.academytiles.com.au
ICQ: 16889511

I'm all for this and more.

[bug_hunter]

There are two things people seem to be hysterically against, nuclear power and genetic engineering.
In South Australia giant protests have delayed any nuclear waste dumb being built in wasteland hundreds of km's from anywhere. Meanwhile my university's science department and the local hospital actually has to keep nuclear waste on site because there's no where else to put it.

Now as for genetic engineering, I have a bad sinus problem, it is genetic, and I would rather not have it. There are thousands of genetically spread diseases that cause misery to many people, but all we have is really medicine.

This is where it gets ugly.

Now in the past before medicine, people with genetically passed disorders would die more often (than healthy people) and mate less, yet now the human gene pool is being more and more poluted with disease as medicine lets people live reasonably healthy lives. Possible solutions.

1) Sterlise genetically inferior
2) Give no medicine to genetically inferior and let them die
3) Genetically alter embroes not to pass on diseases
4) Let things go on as they are and have future generations suffer more disease

No 3 seems like too much of an obvious choice to me. Then the argument that always seems to come up is, "Where does it stop, what if parents want to choose gender or eye colour of their children" etc.
Where my simple answer is "so?". So what if parents can custom make their children? Will this cause any suffering in the world?

Anyway, this message is getting to the length where nobody can be bothered reading it so I'll stop.

Re:New frontiers

[alen]

I thought Gattaca was pretty cool. And Aldous Huxley's Brave New World may come sooner than we thought. I think I'll wait a few more years to have kids. Just so I can come in and order one with brown hair and above average intelligence. And this even relates to Darwin's natural selection. We now have the ability to increase our intelligence and other genetic features that made our species successful so far. Why not use that power to better ourselves even more?

New frontiers

[zoefff]

first this issue in Brittain to split a baby of which one will die. And now this. The frontier is moving a bit further. They examined the DNA closely to have a right fit for the girl. This is not very much away from choosing 'blue eyes, black hair', but this time it is (is it?) justifiable, because it saves a life. This needs a lot of discussion.

Re:New frontiers

[jallen02]

Thats taking this situation a bit to far

They used stuff that was going to be thrown out.

There is not a chance in hell you can probably get away with planned murder like that.

ethically you and I both know that is not proper nor right to do

Life is a crapshoot, not everyone wins and I think really tinkering with that is kind of unethical.

I see the line crossing going on when you attempt to produce a human for slaughter, thats wrong, and without a brain ON purpose is wrong

Jeremy

Re:New frontiers

[Dibb]

It is simply NOT POSSIBLE to chose an embryo with more than 1 or 2 defined characters. In the beggining of the selection process after in vitro fertillisation there are max. 20 embryos. Out of them usually max. 8 develop well. Let's presume that the blue color of eyes and blond hair are single gene and recessive traits. It means that 1/4 of the emryos will have blue eyes. Now we have just 2 embryos. And out of them 1/4 will have blond hair. So you may have one if you are lucky. So no more choosing. And than you have 20% chance of pregnancy. So it is better to implant more embryos and just stick to only one most important genetic trait and to use this technology only when it is necessary.

Re:New frontiers

[Jeremy Erwin]

Well, in a practical sense, developing an anencephalitic clone would probably generate a lot more controversy, because it:

1) Involves human cloning.
2) Removes all chance of consent from the organ "donor", which would probably cause certain spasms in various people. (Although, the designed IVF "donor" will not excercise choice...)
3) Involves redefining humanity. Some people belive that life "begins at conception." Since the embryo is designed not to have a brain, it is simultaneously human in the eyes of e.g. the Catholic Church and anti-abortionites, and not (has no potential of ever becoming human, precisely because it is designed not to be.) I guess that's what people mean by "playing God."

(A certain number of pregnancies end in miscarriges, or the zygote does not properly implant, due to completely natural occurences. If these occurences are duplicated by artificial means, to induce an abortion/miscarraige/whatever, some ethicists have a problem with that.)

Sometimes "ethical minefields" are only problematic in the eyes of person who have rather conservative ethical views...

half right

[twitter]

First they created them, then they killed them. Those 15 embrios did not fall out of the sky like so many bird droppings.

Today proper tissue type, tomorow correct eye color. You can justify creating and destroying 15 people to get one with blue eyes, right? Embrios want to grow, sperms, eggs, and chunks of my tounge do not.

10 Years From Now.

[istartedi]

Daughter: Mommy and Daddy love me more than you.

Son: Do Not!!!

Daughter: Do Too!!!

Son: Prove it.

Daughter: Take a look at this news archive site. That's us they're talking about.

Son: Is not.

Daughter: Is to. The only reason they had you is so they could save me. Otherwise they never would have had you.

Son: (to father) Dad, is this true?

Father: Well...

And from that day forward, little Johnny had to live with the knowledge that were it not for some quirk of fate, his parents wouldn't have had him.

It's hard to say exactly what the psychological impact of this will be on Johnny, or whatever his name is. I think it's safe to say it won't be positive.

Re:10 Years From Now.

[Kintanon]

A natural extension of your argument is that any refusal of a sex act that could lead to a baby is an abortion. After all, that ovum had full potential to become a human life, but was cruelly denied.



Hmmm.... that's one hell of a pickup line.

"Hey baby, you wouldn't wanna be party to causing millions of abortions would you? Well then you'd best get undressed...."

Kintanon

Re:10 Years From Now.

[Grab]

Compared to the parents forgetting birth control? Or compared to some poor woman getting off her head at a party and waking up next to some bloke she's never seen b4?

Read the news. The parents were going to have another child _anyway_. The only difference is that they elected to have a second child who could maybe stop their first child dying of a fatal disease.

Grab.

Re:10 Years From Now.

[Abcd1234]

Actually, from the look of the article, it seems the parents were going to avoid having a child, although they wanted another one, due to the one in four chance of a new child developing Fanconi anemia. The advent of preimplantation diagnosis let them have another child, as they wanted, and avoid abortion (in the case of an affected embryo), which they apparently take issue with. From the comments the parents were making, it seems the use of cord blood for their daughter was just a pleasant bonus of having another child that wasn't affected by the disorder... now, I don't know if I actually believe that, but the point is they wanted another child, so I don't think the the issue you raise is really there. If the child, ten years down the road, asks "Did you have me to save my sister?", the parents will say "No, we wanted another child, and the fact that we could have you and you could save your sister is a wonderful miracle"... *shrug*

Re:10 Years From Now.

[Microsift]

I heard this incredible story on NPR a day or two ago, I don't know if the NYT article mentions this, but the couple in question wanted to have more children. This left them with a choice, have a baby the old fashioned way, and there would be a 1 in 5 chance that the new child's blood would be an HLA match with the six year old, and that the new child didn't also have the disease, or they could do what they did, and dramatically increase the chance of saving the six year old's life.

This seems incredibly obvious...

BTW, it wouldn't go down the way you said, the second child would be valued because he saved his sister's life.

This too seems incredibly obvious...

It's all about you isn't it

[twitter]

It is absolutely *unbelievable* the change in perspective a kid gives you. I would die or kill for Ian. When I see movies with sick or dying kids I have to turn away. The thought of anything happening to him makes my heart sink.

It's funny but some of us feel that way about children and adults even animals before we have children. More people should feel this way. What's wrong with our culture?

Re:It's all about you isn't it

[tdrury]

There's nothing wrong with the culture per se it just that new stimuli (kids) expands our minds. I remember that I, too, was annoyed by crying kids at restaurants, stores, etc. Now I smile and sympathize with these parents (unless they're being irresponsible and discourteous).

And there are people that will never learn even after having kids. Let's hope they never have any; the children end up being neglected.

I can't believe how "grown up" I feel. It's not really that bad....

-tim

Re:From other sources...

[Melantha_Bacchae]

B'Trey writes:

> Why shouldn't they be discarded? They're just
> human tissue, little different than a severed
> finger or an apendix that has been removed.

Ah, but what were they severed from? Each embryo has a complete genetic structure that is totally unique. A severed finger or an apendix has the same genetic structure as the human it was removed from, and if discarded (and the human properly treated) the human it came from can go on with life. In the case of the eighth cell removed for testing, the cell can be discarded, but the embryo goes on (if it is allowed to and not discarded itself). In the case of twins, a separated cell can itself go on and become another baby.

Also, not only can an embryo survive as a living organism in its proper environment (its mother's womb), but it can grow into a human being with a complete set of organs and rights. I'd love to see a severed finger do that! ;)

Personally, I'm not a troll, nor a Christian, nor particularly right wing. But I have trouble seeing a sharp dividing point between embryo, fetus, baby, child, and adult. To me, everything after the formation of a unique genetic code is kind of a continuum. (Though dividing into two organisms, as in twins, does seem a rather sharp division.) How then can we say it is cool to "discard", "abort", or whatever at one stage of developement, but that it is murder at another?

It is a question that requires some serious thought and consideration. Unfortunately, it looks like such decisions are going to be made based on profit, convenience, or who screams "bloody murder" the loudest.

This is getting bad!

[evilviper]

Have you read that article!!! The doctors obviously think they are high and mighty with no though for what make us who we are. I will explain what I mean: "We've crossed the line that we really never had crossed before, selecting based on characteristics that are not the best for the child being born, but for somebody else. Think of any disease that you've had in your lifetime... Did it make you a worse person? Chances are it made you better! Our tribulations define our character more than our triumphs. Now just think, these doctors decided that because of that 'unhealthy trait' you were aborted. Sound fair? That's what's happening right now. Ask someone who has a disability such as paralysis, or some other life-long disability and ask them just one thing... "Would you rather not have been born?" Who suddenly gave us perfect judgement? Who decided that we should play God and decide who should or shouldn't be born? If this continues, we will learn that the traits like sickness also carry positives for us. (Think of it like killing all the spiders on earth) We are upsetting a delicate balance that we know little to nothing about. If our futures lie in the hands of doctors that half the time can't amputate the correct leg, society won't last much longer.

Re:Al Gore is 60.5% in love with slashdot.org!

[terpia]

and dont forget.........#5 @ 88.5%!!

Re:Genetics Inches Forward

[inburito]

Or, in the worst case, two dead children..

It IS right

[r-jae]

Isn't this amazing? This is the kind of stuff that research dollars should be sunk into. Healing the sick. Saving lives like this little girl's, so that she can have a shot at something so many others didn't or haven't - a life.

What gets me is how geniune, decent and morally sound medical procedures such as genetic modification (when it comes about) can be abused, such as choosing the eye colour of your child, the sex of your child etc. etc. This is just plain stupid, and anyone else who thinks otherwise, just post a comment and tell me why it's a good idea. I'd really love to know.

Cheers,
Daniel.

--

Daniel Zeaiter
daniel@academytiles.com.au
http://www.academytiles.com.au
ICQ: 16889511

Re:first

[terpia]

my karma be -1
but i love spankings!!!!

Salon Coverage

[Bernal KC]

More coverage of this issue is found in the Salon article, "Designer babies?"

Re:Where is the line drawn?

[w.p.richardson]

I agree, especically in this case, where a blood disorder could lead to leukemia. Also, it is worth noting that pediatric leukemia has a 70% cure rate (see here for example). Now I admit, chemotherapy for a child (or anyone) is unpleasant, but dealing with these sorts of adversities is what makes families closer together and is an important part of the human experience (IMHO, btw).

Where do you draw the line? If the disease is merely unpleasant but not life threatening, is that a situation where a technique like this could be applied? I am amazed at the scientific acheivement, but at the same time, I am concerned about the "slippery slope".

Re:That is so cool!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you read the story ? Did you read the slashdot post ? Did you read my post?

There was a 1 in 4 chance of the disease when conceiving naturally. They used IVF and screened all the embryos and picked the one that didnt have the disease and provided the best genetic match to the sister with the disease.

Maybe we should be asking you "What the hell are you thinking ?"

The news in the story is " Is it ethical to screen embryos for a disease so that a byproduct of the birth can be used to save the other childs life"

This is a TROLL

[Callon]

The give away is the rhetorical: "Would you rather not have been born?"

To which, of course, millions of suicides answer "Yes" every year......

Trollity Trollity Troll - ignore it like I should have.

Re:Where is the line drawn?

[Illserve]

God forbid we desire children who are intelligent and resistant to disease. All loving parents should want their children to be sickly morons. I understand what you're saying about the slippery slope, but bear in mind that nature has been doing this kind of selection from day 1, and many parents do it in their choice of mates. This is just a more direct way of doing the same selection.

Sure it's ethical

[Hard_Code]

I saw this on TV, and they were trying to make a big deal about it. I was thinking, "yeah, so why is this news?" They had a sound bite of some alarmist ethicist who was saying this is a slippery slope to designer babies. Bullocks. If you were planning to have a child anyway (which they were), why not select an egg/embryo who could help save a child you already have? This is a fabricated "issue".

And where are the anti-abortionists claiming that the discarded eggs/embryos where actually "aborted" and murdered? My god they murdered those poor unborn unicellular children!

Re:From other sources...

[B'Trey]

Apparently, the embryo was chosen as having the best chance, not no chance of developing the disease.

Where do you get that? The article says When the embryos reach the eight-cell stage, one cell is removed and tested genetically, a procedure called preimplantation genetic diagnosis. The testing is used to select embryos that do not have the same genetic disease as the sibling, but do have tissue compatible for transplant. This certainly seems to imply that the embryo does NOT have this particular genetic problem. Certainly, we aren't yet at the stage where we can identify ALL genetic problems, but we can identify and screen out a number of known ones.

Anyway, there were 14 other embryos passed over, so ethically, they would always be available in the future.

Surely they would not have been simply discarded in a civilized society.

I'm not sure if you're being serious or droll, but I'll take the chance that I'm being trolled. Why shouldn't they be discarded? They're just human tissue, little different than a severed finger or an apendix that has been removed.

Re:Where is the line drawn?

[sjames]

Sure, in this case the criteria were simple; that the child's tissue would match that of his sister. Nothing to worry about surely? No, but where does this lead on to? The selection of embryos for other characteristics? If it is alright to select for medical reasons, who is to say that it isn't alright to select for other reasons - intelligence, appearance, resistance to diseases...?

Tough questions! Natural selection has handled that process for millions of years, with no consideration for individuals at all. In recent years, mankind has halted much of that process in many ways.

Those ways include medical science which can allow a person who might never have reproduced to live a long life and have children. Warning lables and safety devices meant to protect people from death and injury due to lack of thought (though the determindly foolish will inevitably find a way to get themselves killed anyway).

The real question is does mankind have the wisdom to know its' limitations? The monte carlo proces of nature may not seem 'wise', but it did get us all the way from random chemical reactions to beings that can contemplate these matters.

It looks like God DOES play dice with the universe, but perhaps the dice are loaded.

Ultimatly, the science is ethically neutral. The uses it is put to make the difference.

my kid

[tdrury]

Before my boy was born (10 months ago) we were asked if we wanted to pay $1500 to save the cord blood. At the time this was a considerable amount of money for us - we didn't sign up. Now I think that was some commercial outfit trying to make money. When Ian was born and before the doctor cut the cord, he drew a bunch of blood from it. I'm not really sure where it went (research, storage, etc??). I probably should have paid more attention. Luckily he is healthy and happy.

For anyone questioning the ethics of what that couple did, I ask you this, "do you have kids?". In general, I would guess you don't.

It is absolutely *unbelievable* the change in perspective a kid gives you. I would die or kill for Ian. When I see movies with sick or dying kids I have to turn away. The thought of anything happening to him makes my heart sink.

I'm the fourth of four kids and I was a "mistake". Sure proof that "rhythm method" contraception doesn't work. Did my parents love me? Of course you morons - No sane person can look at their own flesh and blood and not feel overwhelming love.

Have one and see. I'm glad I did.

-tim

correct URL

[Seehund]

It seems /. won't allow long URLs. Just remove any spaces in the URL above. I didn't put them there, honest!

.-. .- -.. .. --- -....- .- -.- - .. ...- .. - .-.- - ...-.-

I don't think this is as big as it's been reported

[jht]

This couple, as I've read in many of the reports, wanted another child. Unfortunately, they had a significant risk of conceiving another child with the same disorder. Since it was possible to screen the embryo for the defect, they did so - and as luck would have it, a healthy embryo could also, after birth, give them a chance to cure their other child.

There are some aspects of this (ie., selection) that could raise ethical questions, but I don't think this case is one those questions apply to. If anything, this is an exapmple of the positive uses of the kind of reproductive and diagnostic technologies that are available to us.

I can also state unequivocally (since my wife and I are going through this now) that IVF is not a trivial procedure at all. The process is complicated, painful, and requires substantial fortitude and commitment to complete. The end result is a fairly large number of fertilized embryos, of which the most robust are identified and up to five of which are implanted (in all but a handful of cases, only one or two of them implant successfully). In a case where there is a substantial risk of a deadly defect being passed, it's to the benefit of the future child, the parents, and society as a whole if that defect can be identified and either avoided or even corrected.

The challenge is to avoid the slippery slope of typing for positive, "trivial" characteristics (like hair color, eye color, sex, height potential), and just look for the severe and fatal genetic defects that can occur.

- -Josh Turiel

Genetics Inches Forward

[krmt]

I think this is a wonderful thing personally. Not only does genetic screening save their next child from having anemia (and I assume other major genetic disorders) but it also allows them to save the life of their other child.

The moralists may contend that it's unethical to bring a child in to the world simply for parts, but that isn't really what happened here. They wanted a healthy child, and the ability to save their other child doesn't mean that they won't love or care for the baby as well. This is just one of those things that really makes me proud to be a student of biology, because we're actually seeing the benefits of all of this, and there are many more to come. Despite all the scares and potential for wrongdoing, the ability to save a child from leukemia with a birth is worth all the scares from the moralists.

"I may not have morals, but I have standards."

Re:Genetics Inches Forward

[GungaDan]

Well thought out and well stated. I have a couple of minor quibbles: There were probably not too many other genetic tests involved, as the parents specifically sought to rule out Fanconi Anemia and were presumably not concerned with screening for other dioxyribonucleic nasties. It is also quite wrong-headed for people to assert that this child was conceived and born "for parts." The parts used were cells from the umbilical cord which would have been discarded (or, in most large hospitals, stored according to a contract with some biotech firm for future commercial use). I do think that the parents will have some careful tap-dancing to do when explaining this to BOTH of their kids later in life, but if they sling enough of that "love" crap around they should be able to satisfy the curiosities of both animated cell clumps.

Re:I don't think this is as big as it's been repor

[jht]

That's the thing - I see a significant difference between repair and design. However, not all people see a line between them. My intention in pointing out the issue with embryos is fairly simple; it's given that every embryo represents potential life, and human life at that. I think I may have chosen my words poorly before.

However, given that embryos _are_ life to whatever extent we consider, do we have a moral obligation to make sure each one of those embryos has an opportunity to live? Or do we decide which ones to bring to term? I have no problem with deciding at that stage, though I find the idea of aborting that same person-to-be once it's in the womb to be repugnant (though I am pro-choice, my personal choice would be for life - I just consider it to be a personal moral issue rather than a societal one). And I believe that that line is drawn at the point when the fetus becomes viable outside the womb, however early that point can be made by technology. When you are using technology to assist in creating a child, I have no problem with deliberately picking the "best" embryo - assuming the criteria is simply one that is robust (some embryos don't form as well - I've read in many places that roughly 30% of all fertilized eggs abort themselves at an early phase and never result in a term pregnancy) and free of known defects that will result in the likely or certain death of the child. I'm not concerned with screening for things that result in a social or physical disadvantage, and most "defects" don't necessarily have a bearing on a person's ability to live. Blindness is not incompatible with life. A misshapen arm isn't either. Huntington's is guaranteed early death, though - and I would not implant an embryo with that gene.

The difference is that things like a tendency towards breast cancer is just that - a tendency. It's not a certainty. Whereas Huntington's, for instance, is a death sentence - if you have that gene combination, you will die from it - the only question being when. And I think that distinction is how you stay ethically correct in these matters.

That particular government's efforts to create a homogenous people are horrible and brutal, but not (thankfully) in the lab - that line hasn't been (publically - maybe it's happening now somewhere in the world in private) crossed anywhere since the second world war. Neither of us have directly suffered as a result of this, for which we should be thankful. And I think society, as a whole, has learned some lessons from the era - namely that there _is_ a difference, however small, between enabling people to be born disease-free and eugenics. Most people are not willing to cross that line, and I won't either. The couple in the US having a child that does not suffer from their daughter's disease doesn't cross the line. The English couple (that you referred to in your link - it was an interesting article) that wants to specifically have a daughter - they're straddling the line. And to have a baby that'll be 6'5" male and run a 40-yd dash in 4.3 seconds because you screened for it - that's just plain wrong and veers perilously towards eugenics.

That said, when it's time to have our own implantation done (sometime next week), I simply want to implant the appropriate number of embryos that have the best chance of attaching and allowing my wife to bring them to term. And I don't give a shit about their sex, hair color, handedness, height, or anything else. I just want to see healthy children that can be brought to term safely, that we can love with everything we have and raise to be the best humans possible. That's all I ever want to ask for - the chance to be the best parent I can. And to me, that's what assisted reproduction is all about.

- -Josh Turiel

The wonders of modern science.

[Lita Juarez]

This really is a miracle of modern science. Although this case has provoked much controversy, from people who think it is "unethical", in my opinion it is perfectly acceptable.

I have heard people describe it as "against God's will" to concieve a child for the purpose of using the baby as "medication" for another sick child. But surely it is even more wrong to deny an existing child the right to life, just because of some warped ideas about morality?

Morality has become an outdated concept. Scientific progress has meant that many new ideas, which were never conceived when society previously decided what was "moral", have now become immoral by default. And society's hang-ups over morality are preventing the human race from maximising its full potential. I find it disappointing that our moral guardians are deciding that human cloning is wrong and immoral, and I'll never get the chance to clone myself and live beyond my normal lifespan.

Morality and religion simply aren't relevant to the fast-changing modern world. They represent mankind's fear of change and threaten to keep the human race locked in the medieval era. If something is scientifically possible, then it should automatically be moral and good. Only the scientifically impossible things such as necromancy and worship of idols should be classed as immoral.

We should celebrate this medical innovation as a miracle of science which it clearly is, rather than berating it and questioning it on moral grounds.

Where is the line drawn?

[flatpack]

As a firm believer in ethical science I can appreciate the life-saving opportunity presented by this technique whilst at the same time be concerned about the possible directions it is leading in. This treatment is on the borderline between "good" and "bad" science in that it requires the selection of a particular embryo based on a set of desired characteristics.

Sure, in this case the criteria were simple; that the child's tissue would match that of his sister. Nothing to worry about surely? No, but where does this lead on to? The selection of embryos for other characteristics? If it is alright to select for medical reasons, who is to say that it isn't alright to select for other reasons - intelligence, appearance, resistance to diseases...?

After all, these can all be "justified" by claiming they improve the quality of life of the unborn child.

There is a fine line between doing this for medical reasons and doing it for personal reasons. We need to make sure that this line is never crossed for the sake of the gene pool if nothing else - diversity is both good and required. But ethically, this is a step away from letting parents get rid of embryos that don't match up to their perfect child, and that is, in my book, murder justified by science without ethics.

Use Cord blood banks save lives (yours and others)

[yuriwho]

If you are having a baby soon and have a few grand to in the bank to spare, I suggest that you look into finding a hospital and doctor who will help you get the cord blood deposited in a cord blood bank. If your child ever gets any environment induced serious immune disorders or blood cancers this will likely save their lives. For that matter, if you or a close relative gets these kind of problems that cord blood may save you too. A quick google search finds the following Cord Blood Bank but I'm sure there are many. But you only have one chance to get it.

With more stem cell research, recently allowed by the NIH, the public will soon be able (I guess 10 years or so) to generate embryonic stem cells from your own somatic cells, skin cells etc., and allow you to donate all kinds of stem cells not just bone marrow stem cells to yourself or others without a marrow tap.

Whoa....