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The evil ‘science’ of eugenics has recently reared its ugly head in a particularly troubling way. Herasight, a new US business startup, is selling prospective parents genetic information about their embryonic children, so that they can pick the child who best fits their wishes and preferences.
Herasight’s gene selection tool claims to predict the likelihood of 17 diseases. The company boasts: ‘We are a team of scientists building the highest quality genetic tests for families. Our research spans monogenic conditions to complex disease prediction: Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, cancers, Level 3 autism, diabetes, major depressive disorder, and more.’ Even more disturbing is the claim that a baby’s IQ score can be predicted.
‘Smacks of eugenics’
The pro-life community will find all this especially abhorrent as its mission is to proclaim and promote the inherent value and dignity of every human being regardless of who they are. SPUC has repeatedly spoken out against the screening and abortion for disability, which is essentially a eugenic policy. Indeed, reporting on Herasight, the publication ‘Futurism’, highlights the thinly veiled eugenic foundation of the Herasight enterprise, stating: ‘the entire concept smacks of eugenics’.
The Herasight business is capitalising on the development of polygenic embryo screening (PES). PES is best understood as a more intense and expanded version of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). PGD has been used for many years in IVF where there is a chance that a baby might be at risk of a single gene disorder. In PGD, multiple embryos are created and then tested to exclude those with the disability. Only an embryonic child considered free of the disorder is then transferred in his or her mother’s womb.
Picking the ‘best’
Besides testing for disease and disease risk, PES offers the possibility of selecting non-disease traits such as eye and hair colour, height and intelligence. A couple would be presented with a spreadsheet listing the risk of many hundreds of conditions and traits for each embryo. They then select the one they think is the ‘best’.
Where do we even start to unpack the problems and horrors of PES? Dr Greg Pike, SPUC’s consultant on bioethics, says: ‘For a start, PES may not be anywhere near as accurate or specific as claimed. It might not even work at all, particularly for complex characteristics such as intelligence.’ He also points out that PES will be even less useful for non-European descent as most of the research has been conducted on people of European ancestry.
Then there is the near certainty of manufacturing human beings in ever greater numbers in the hope of getting the most desirable baby. Some couples may find that none of their embryonic babies fit their expectations, leading to further cycles of IVF, and even more embryos being produced and discarded.
Financial gain
Commercial enterprises such as Herasight will hype their ‘product’ for financial gain. They are trading on the fears and egos of parents looking for an intelligent child, free of disease and even free of the risk of disease. But it could take years, even decades, to see the results of the selection process. Herasight could be long gone by the time a carefully selected embryo gets cancer in middle-age. As Dr Pike says: ‘Even using such language as “product” about human beings is dehumanising and turns human life into a commodity to be manufactured and manipulated.’
In a world obsessed with choice and control, PES is pushing boundaries even further. But choosing the future of another human can easily become a burden rather than a benefit. Do parents choose between intelligence or cancer risk? In selecting one combination of genes for their child could they be inadvertently deselecting a range of other valuable characteristics and features which may turn out to be truly unique? In this situation parents become victims of the ‘paradox of choice’ – having so many options that decision making is overwhelming and becomes a hindrance to choosing and not a help. ‘The irony is that by thinking they are enhancing their autonomy, parents may be undermining it. This can lead to disappointment and less happiness in the long run,’ says Dr Pike.
The child
Where is the child in all of this? How will a child feel knowing that their very identity was selected by their parents? This could put an unbearable psychological weight on a child which he or she will carry throughout life. This burden will be even greater if, despite the selection process or even because of it, the child or adult develops some unforeseen health condition or personality issue. PES is an extreme example of children being created to fulfil the needs and expectations of adults. It may rupture the parent-child relationship, having already fractured the unitive and procreative aspects of a couple’s relationship.
‘Gattaca’
Are we poised to turn science fiction into reality? Maybe not just yet, but PES is undeniably taking us in that direction. But sci-fi can also teach us some lessons. The film ‘Gattaca’ shows us a society built on genetic selection. Yet the ultimate message of the movie is clear: the human spirit cannot be constrained by genetic makeup. In the pro-life movement we know that every person is more than his or her genes. As pro-lifers, we will always be a voice for the weakest and most vulnerable, cherishing those whom others would like to eliminate.
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