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Preimplantation genetics - bad use of good technology?

By Alliance Alert

PGD gets you more control. That's what makes it such a blessing when you're trying not to pass on a fatal disease: You don't have to accept the guesswork of "Well, I'm asymptomatic, and so is my husband, so the odds are that our child won't get it." But that's also what makes it troubling when you're aiming for aesthetic traits: It eliminates novelty and surprise (Jeremy's beef), and it lowers the threshold for discarding embryos as unfit (my beef). Using sperm from a blond donor doesn't guarantee you a blond kid. But in theory, if you screen your embryos for hair-color genes, you can eliminate all the brunettes. The good and bad effects of increased precision go hand in hand.

Full post as published by Constitutionally Correct on February 27, 2009 (boomark / email).