Mothers are recommended prenatal testing if their babies are considered at risk for certain chromosomal abnormalities, metabolic or hereditary disorders. The two types of prenatal testing — amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling — both carry some risk of miscarriage and complications and the decision whether or not to test can be a dilemma in itself. On the one hand, knowing that your baby will have a disorder can help you prepare, medically and psychologically, with some disorders treatable in the womb. On the other hand, a positive test result presents yet another ethical nightmare; if a disorder is detected early enough parents can chose to abort the pregnancy. In fact, one study shows that eighty-six percent of mothers whose babies were diagnosed with Down’s-like abnormalities chose to abort. While the development of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis eliminates the abortion-conundrum— at-risk parents conceiving via IVF can test embryos before implantation to ensure that only healthy ones end up in the womb— this in turn raises the specter of eugenics and “designer babies.” So, where do we draw the line? The leap from amniocentesis to eugenics may seem like a stretch, but one article in Wired argues that, whatever your opinion may be, eugenics are already here. The real question is; how do we choose to use the science?
The Women’s
“What An Amniocentesis Does”
“Amniocentesis is a prenatal diagnostic test performed at around 16 weeks of pregnancy… It involves passing a needle through the skin of the mother, through the wall of the uterus (womb) and taking a small sample (around 16mls) of the fluid surrounding the developing baby… The cells in the fluid can be used to investigate the baby’s chromosomes; which is why it is possible to find out from this investigation if the baby has Down syndrome, or any of the other chromosome disorders.” …read the full article
BabyCenter Australia®
“Chorionic Villus Sampling”
“Chorionic villus sampling (CVS) is a very accurate antenatal test that detects chromosomal abnormalities such as Down syndrome. It takes placental tissue, as opposed to baby cells used in an amniocentesis. Its main advantage over amniocentesis is that it can be performed earlier — between the 10th and 14th weeks of pregnancy.” …read the full article
Centre For Genetics Education
“Prenatal Testing and Screening For Fetal Abnormalities”
“There are a number of different tests and procedures that can be performed during pregnancy. Each has distinctive advatages, disadvantages and limitations.” …read the full article
The Science Creative Quarterly
“Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis And Our Future: Should We Be Peering Into the Womb?”
“Since the announcement that the entire human DNA genome had been sequenced […] newspapers around the world have been rife with proclamations describing how this information is being used for the prevention and treatment of genetic disorders. Among the most promising and controversial claims is the ability of genetic technology to screen in vitro conceived embryos for the presence or absence of certain genes before implantation into the mother.” …read the full article
Wired
“The Remastered Race”
“Artificial chromosomes and in vitro screening are giving new life to the eugenics debate. The question is not whether we want to engineer embryos but how far it should go. […] This is not an academic question. The technology to create wholesale alterations in the genome, and to take charge of human evolution, is already in development.”…read full article
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