Fertility Clinic Bows To Pressure, Nixes Eye- and Hair-Color Screening

destinyland writes "A fertility service in L.A. and New York screens embryos for breast cancer, cystic fibrosis, and 70 other diseases — and lets couples pick the sex of their babies. But when their pre-implantation diagnostic services began including the baby's eye and hair color, even the Pope objected — and the Great Designer Baby Controversy began. '[W]e cannot escape the fact that science is moving forward,' the fertility service explained — before capitulating to pressure to eliminate the eye and hair color screenings."

Comments

Re:what is the big deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are there any records of (other) animals in nature, namely mothers, culling off her weaker children? Here are three examples.

Askmen Top 10 Bad Animal Kingdom Mothers

Lioness:

Any cubs of less than 2 years old are killed by the male to stop any future rivals challenging him for the pride, and also to encourage the lionesses to go into heat, allowing him to begin his own dynasty. The lionesses allow this to happen -- a cruel edge to their mothering nature.

Black Bears:

Black bears like to have litters of two or three cubs, as it takes a similar amount of effort to raise one cub as it does three. Because of this, it has been documented that if a black bear gives birth to just one cub, she will sometimes simply abandon it and will hope for a larger litter the following year. Unlike many animals that may abandon young which are sick or weak, the bear will abandon the youngster simply for being on its own.

African Black Eagle:

The African Black Eagle usually lays two eggs, although one is generally no more than an insurance policy. The idea of an insurance policy is quite common in the animal kingdom, but it is the manner in which the unwanted young is disposed of which is particularly shocking. The mother will feed only one chick, and as it grows stronger it will peck its weaker sibling to death. What is especially gruesome about this is that the mother will look on impassively as her youngster is dispatched.

In hindsight, aborting a potential human in the womb seems a lot less brutal.

Re:It's not the eye color screening that bugs me

[oldspewey]

Steven Hawkings probably would have been screened out of existence

Actually Stephen Hawking suffers from adult-onset ALS, so he likely would not have been screened out of existence even if the technology existed ... especially since no definitive cause for ALS has been established, though DNA defects have not been ruled out.