Where To Draw the Line With Embryo Selection?

Tjeerd writes "There is currently a discussion going on in the Netherlands about embryo selection. The process means that when using in vitro fertilization, you can check what kind of genetic defects will definitely become activated during life. When embryos with those defects are identified, they can be avoided or destroyed. The next step the government is considering is to make it possible to select against genetic defects which might become active in life, such as breast and colon cancer. Of course, this is a very difficult discussion; where do you start, and where do you end? People are worrying that there is no real limit, and that you could potentially check for every genetic defect. I think if you're in a situation where you or your family have genetic defects, you surely want to check whether your children would have them too. What does the Slashdot community think about this?"

Comments

Re:Government should not be involved at all

[LordLucless]

How about the various form of twinning that occur, which in rare cases leads to one twin actually becoming part of the other, and needing to be removed so that the fully grown twin can live? That other twin (which cannot survive in any scenario) is human, and it is its own entity

There are two entirely different scenarios being posed. In the situation above, you state that there are two human lives at risk - how do you balance between them. It's the same as saying "You're wife and child are dangling from different cliffs. Both could fall at any moment. You have time to save one - which do you choose?" It's a moral dilemma, a no-win situation - whichever way you choose, a human dies, and your choice will be based upon this knowledge.

This is entirely different to "There is one human life, and a bunch of cells. We can do whatever we like to the bunch of cells, because we don't define it as human". In this case, there is no weighing of the life of the embryo, no moral decision - it's considered junk, and treated like it.

At the risk of sounding flamebait-y, this is the same proposition raised during the time when black slavery was acceptable. If you define "human" in such a way that it excludes blacks, then slavery isn't any more wrong than keeping hunting dogs. They're just animals after all. Whenever you start splitting hairs over what is and isn't human, you begin toeing a very fine line.