More recently, a January 2009 study by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center found that an overwhelming 75% of parents would be in favor of trait selection using PGD – as long as that trait is the absence of mental retardation. A further 54% would screen their embryos for deafness, 56% for blindness, 52% for a propensity to heart disease, and 51% for a propensity to cancer. Only 10% would be willing to select embryos for better athletic ability, and 12.6% would select for greater intelligence. 52.2% of respondents said that there were no conditions for which genetic testing should never be offered, indicating widespread support for PGD – as long as it’s for averting disease and not engineering human enhancement. (emphasis mine)Not to burst anyone's bubble, but screening out congenital conditions and disease sure seems like human enhancement to me.
While not pre-screening genetic material, many people already participate in human engineering. Folks who consider themselves compatible get together and reproduce for the purposes of passing on their own genetic material in an attempt to perpetuate their genetic traits. People have often used this line of reasoning when encouraging me to have children. They look at myself at my chosen mate and see a genetic line they think the world could use more of.
It may not be pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) in a lab, but people still participate in human engineering.
1 comment:
The human race has done fine without PGD. Would someone have screened out Beethoven? Plato? Einstein?Jimmy Page? Me (gulp)? No one can possibly know what any human being will become based on genetics. Even those with handicaps can be some of our greatest mainds like Steven Hawkins.
The human body also routinely rejects/aborts flawed fetus'. Nature knows best. One of my many problems with people that use invitro fertilization is nature probably recognizes a flaw we don't.
My 2 cents worth here.
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