Designer Baby Given Go-ahead

An anonymous reader writes "A couple in the Australian city of Melbourne has been given the legal go ahead to breed a genetically modified 'designer' baby to cure their terminally ill child."

Comments

Genetic screening ... not modification

[bigsteve@dstc]

The summary of the this Slashdot posting is misleading. It is absolutely clear from the Melbourne Age article that this is not genetic modification. For example, it says:

It is believed to be the first time in Australia that approval has been granted to use IVF in combination with genetic screening and tissue matching to create a "donor" child for a sick sibling.

Won't SONEONE Please Think of the Children

[MBCook]

Now I have to say that I don't like the idea of cloning and genetic enginering (of humans) in the first place. But I'm very focused on the needs and well being of children, so let me ask all of you a few questions. I'm obviously against this, BTW. I think it's cruel and, in fact, just plain EVIL to concieve a child for the purpose of saving someone else's life. That right there is treating the kid like cattle. It's a human being.

1. What happens if this kid's cells don't cure the couple's first kid? That means that they brought a life into the world with the sole intent of curing someone else's life, and it didn't work. Wouldn't that make this kid a failure? How would you like to know that you were concieved to save someone's life and didn't? How would you like to know that you weren't concieved because your parrents wanted a second kid, but because they wanted their first kid to live? It's too bad that their kid is ill, but this is a terrible thing to do to a kid. It's not like they'll be able to hide it from him. It was bad enough when that couple tried to concieve a kid a few years ago for the same reason, but at least they didn't engineer the kid. If your parrents concieved you to save the life of your older sibling, doesn't that clearly imply that they love that other sibling more? What kind of psychological damage will all of this cause to this kid.
2. What if this new kid has health problems. Will they have a 3rd kid to save its life? What's the difference, other than they may have caused this kid's problems, as opposed to it just being a chance of genetics.
3. What if there is a miscarrige? Wouldn't you still get the cells needed if it was far enough along? Is this then a success or a failure? Someone was concieved so that someone could live, but that first person died and the second person still lived. What does that mean? Was the first person worthless? Why not just have an abortion partway through? Then how could one possibly argue that the kid who was aborted wasn't just a "sack of organs"? What kind of person tries to concieves a child knowing full well that they will kill it if they succede? Yes, I'm against abortion, but this is one of the reasons why.
4. If someone kills the new kid before it can save the life of the first kid, is that double homicide? On the one hand, you've doomed the first kid. On the other hand, he's already dead, so can he be killed?
5. May I remind you all of "Brave New World", "Gattaca", and such other works of fiction?
6. Should we even save the first kids life in the first place? This one is a thought expirament, I'm not proposing this (I'd be dead in such a case). One can easily argue that medical technology has rendered evolution mute on our species, which is probably why the rates of just about everything bad (cancer, obiesity, diabetes, heart disease, asethma, allergies, etc.) have been rising over the last century. Should we be allowed to play god (genetic engineering) to help us play god better (by curing the first kid who should, purely by evolution, not survive)?
7. If it's cord cells they're after, why not test the cells from every baby born in a hospital, and ask the parrents of any matching kids if they'll help out by allowing the use of the cord cells. Why even create a second kid?
8. What does it teach their first kid that they concieve another just to save his life? Does it teach him that life is sacred? Or does it teach him that kids are more like a commodity, and that he can be replaced. Does this give his life more or less value?

That said, what do you make of this quote in the article?

"The couple's child is believed to have a terminal illness. Its only chance of survival is to receive a transfusion of umbilical cord blood from a perfectly matched sibling."

They don't even know if the kid has the illness and THEY ARE DOING ALL OF THIS? Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this part ALONE? How do they know that this is the only chance if they don't even know if this kid has this illness?

I realize that this post might seem kind of "troll"-y, but these are serious questions? Even if you are "pro-choice" (a misnomer, but that's another issue), would you agree with the abortion in #3? If you think I'm a troll, please reply to this and give me logical arguements why I'm wrong (I'll just assume the "You're an idiot because you suck" posts) instead of modding me down.

Re:Won't SONEONE Please Think of the Children

[Sloppy]

Should we even save the first kids life in the first place? This one is a thought expirament, I'm not proposing this (I'd be dead in such a case). One can easily argue that medical technology has rendered evolution mute on our species, which is probably why the rates of just about everything bad (cancer, obiesity, diabetes, heart disease, asethma, allergies, etc.) have been rising over the last century. Should we be allowed to play god (genetic engineering) to help us play god better (by curing the first kid who should, purely by evolution, not survive)?

Evolution does not deserve our reverence. A conscious person's desire is far more important than blind nature's thoughtless process.

And if the application of this desire results in a naturally "less fit" genotype, then so be it. A life (I'm talking about the parents' lives here, not the child's) either has no purpose at all, or one of its own choosing. If people choose (by default) the same purpose as mother nature (to mindlessly optimize the fitness function), that would be a pretty disappointing waste of brains, IMHO.

Ah, but regarding the child's purpose... What will this kid think when he learns of his "purpose?" Well, as soon as he's old enough to think, then he'll already have new purpose all on his own. His parents' original motives become irrelevant. I just hope he knows this.

I think it's cruel and, in fact, just plain EVIL to concieve a child for the purpose of saving someone else's life. That right there is treating the kid like cattle. It's a human being.

By that reasoning, is there ever any justification for choosing to conceive a child? Would not any concious decision to create life, be a form of objectifying that life?

I think treating people like cattle is horrible too, but I have no problems with abortion or genetic hacking. I reconcile this by using a perhaps (?) nonconventional definition for "people." Having human DNA isn't enough to quality (nor is it even a strict requirement, though I've never met a person who didn't have it). What matters, what gives (or doesn't give) a being the value I assign to a person, isn't what kind of meat they're made out of. What matters is how they act. Goo inside a test tube, even if it is a potential person, ain't one yet.