A 27 year old British mother had her embryos screened because of the history of breast cancer in her family. Then doctors only implanted the embryos without that inherited breast cancer gene.
Some are calling this creating a "designer baby."
What do you think?

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/health/2008/06/30/cohe...east.cancer.gene.cnn

This is a tough one for me. I guess the only good thing is that she is screening for a hereditary disease and not blond hair and blue eyes. It's just messing with nature too much for me.

Would she love a child any less if as an adult they developed breast cancer or any other disease?

Good Golly,
I agree that it is a tough question, and to be honest, I don't know how I feel about it. However, I am guessing that the issue isn't so much about loving the baby less if she developed cancer as an adult, as much as already loving her so much as to want to prevent her from ever having that level of suffering.

But where do we draw the line? What if nearsightedness is screenable? Or freckles? It's an old agrument and a slippery slope, and I'm not at all certain where I fall -- does it have to be all or none in order to avoid the slippery slope problem? Do we say, then, that we can't screen for cancer because we don't want people screening for nearsightedness? Or, alzheimer's? We already screen for some chromosomal diseases; it's up to the parents then to decide "what to do," so on some level I'm not sure that screening before pregnancy, and implanting the more desirable embryos is that different -- at least, scientifically. I need to think this through more before I commit to a moral position.

Kristi, thanks for posting this -- it's going to make for some great conversations at home in the next few weeks, I am sure!

I really do not agree with what she did...children are a gift, and we should not use screening to select the "perfect" child. At least it was for something genetic and not for gender or looks.

This just seems like such dangerous territory to me. And what if, by chosing that particular embryo she avoided the breast cancer gene but got another gene that will later cause some other disease or something awful? She can't know that the child will be protected from all genetically based diseases. There's something about it that just doesn't seem right to me - messing with things that ought to be left up to nature.

You should read the book "Crake & Oryx" by Margaret Atwood. This reminded me of that.

Yeah, I thought it was interesting. On one hand, it's amazing that we have the technology to screen for these types of things. But it opens up a can of worms for sure. Who's to stop parents from choosing embryos based on non-medical concerns in the future? Also, the report says while her baby won't have that particular breast cancer gene it does not mean the baby will not get breast cancer.