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Sequencing the Unborn
sciencehabit writes "What if you could read much of your child's medical future while it was still in the womb? Taking a major step toward that goal, one fraught with therapeutic potential and ethical questions, scientists have now accurately predicted almost the whole genome of an unborn child by sequencing DNA from the mother's blood and DNA from the father's saliva (abstract)."
The caveat to this is that "ethical" is opinionated and everyone's is different. Even if the laws of your area are completely aligned with exactly how you feel about the ethical implications, there will be other areas that have vastly different laws. Even within any given area, there will be people who think the law doesn't apply to them and take things into their own hands.
"Gattaca" wasn't fiction - it was an accurate prediction of a dystopian, fast-approaching and very real future.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
What if you could read much of your child's medical future while it was still in the womb?
The more worrying question here in the U.S. is, "What if your insurance company could decide your child's medical access while it was still in the womb, based on poorly-understood genetic risk factors and eugenics pseudoscience?"
What's decidedly unclear from the summary: they're sequencing fetal cells found in the mother's blood. It was separated from the mother's own blood cells with a nify trick using the father's DNA.
So it allows them to sequence the baby's type without having to touch the infant itself. They're not making any "mother+father=baby" predictions before the baby is conceived, which would be impossible just from their ordinary (somatic) cells.
To summarize: it's not yet possible to isolate only embryonic DNA from the mothers' blood, so using the father and mother's DNA sequences, they can tell which sequences are from the mother and which one are from the embryo.
Without the father's sequence, the confidence in the sequencing probably goes down, but is still possible.
Now you appreciate I can only work with the raw material I have at my disposal but for a little extra...I could also attempt to insert sequences associated with enhanced mathematical or musical ability.
Emphasis mine.
How about we let parents decide whether it's ethical for them?
Thats begging the question: Its only OK to let the parents decide whats ethical, if your stance on abortion is correct. If it isnt, your argument would be akin to "why not let the parents decide if they want to abandon their newborn".
Not trying to be flame/troll bait here (even tho I likely will be modded as such), but the entire argument from most prolifers is that the fetus is every bit as human as a newborn is. Unless you start off by assuming theyre wrong (again, begging the question), you cant just say "well, lets let the parents decide whether thats true"-- because we DONT take that stance with a baby post-birth.
Thats begging the question
Stop right there. No it's not. I'll let you ask your question anyway, but it's going to be a strawman argument.
your argument would be akin to "why not let the parents decide if they want to abandon their newborn".
Called it! That's a strawman. We're not talking about a newborn, we're talking about an embryo. Everyone agrees that a newborn has rights, there is no consensus as to whether an embryo does. Furthermore, a newborn is not an obligate dependent on one specific person, newborns can be dropped off at any safe baby haven or given up for adoption. There's no similar alternative for pregnant women.
My point here is that this is a totally separate issue from abandoning a newborn.
Answering your point, no, I don't think letting the parents decide whether abortion is right or not for them is only ethical if we assume life does not begin at conception. In most countries, most ethical decisions are left up to the individual. There's no law that says I can't cheat on my wife, it's up to me to decide if I think that's ethical or want to do that. Lacking a law against adultery is not an unethical situation, it simply leaves the responsibility up to the individual.
Legalizing abortion doesn't endorse abortion, it only leaves the ethical question up to the people who deserve to make the choice: the parents.