Pros and Cons - Debbie Newman, Ben Woolgar 2014

Eugenics: IVF and genetic screening
Section H. Health, science and technology

’Eugenics’, meaning ’good breeding’, was first used by the English scientist Francis Galton in 1883 to refer to the study of ways to improve the mental and physical characteristics of the human race through targeted mating. It did not then have the sinister overtones that it has since acquired through association with the attempts in Nazi Germany to exterminate entire racial and social groups. Modern techniques such as genetic engineering — and in particular, the genetic screening of embryos created by in vitro fertilisation (IVF) — have again raised the question of whether we should intervene to determine the biological make-up of our children.

Pros

[1] The process of IVF does not involve any pernicious manipulation of genes, and is already widely used. Using IVF, a large number of embryos can be made from the sperm and eggs of the parents. A cell biopsy can be done on each embryo and the DNA from the cell can be screened. This will tell the parents which of the embryos has the lowest risk of heart disease, cancer or diabetes and which will contract genetic diseases such as Alzheimer’s, muscular dystrophy, haemophilia or cystic fibrosis later in life. This technology already exists, and it is inevitable and understandable that parents will want to use it to ensure that their baby is as healthy as possible.

[2] It is also right that the technology should be used. If we have the power to decide whether we bring a baby into the world with or without cystic fibrosis, with or without a genetic neurological disease such as Huntington’s chorea (which brings on rapid and extreme mental dementia in middle age), then we surely have a duty to choose the latter. This is not genetic engineering — it is merely a case of choosing which of the embryos ’naturally’ created from the parents’ sperm and egg should be implanted in the womb. At present, there is an in utero anomaly scan and parents can choose to abort an embryo if it is found to have Down’s syndrome or another genetic disorder. IVF screening is morally preferable to that and less distressing for the parents.

[3] Healthy embryos not chosen after screening can be frozen (as surplus IVF embryos often are) and offered up for ’adoption’ by childless couples. Government agencies can be set up (as opposed to the private clinics that trade in these embryos in some states of America), analogous to adoption agencies, to administer and oversee this process. Couples will not be allowed to dictate the genetic make-up of the embryo, but could be offered a selection of healthy embryos from which to choose. This method has two principal advantages over traditional adoption: first, the parents have an assurance that the embryo is genetically screened and so their child will be healthy; and second, the mother will carry the child to term herself, thus forming an important additional physical and emotional bond with her child.

Cons

[1] It is right that those couples using IVF because they cannot conceive by other methods should be told whether their embryos have certain serious genetic defects, but a line must be drawn between this and the widespread use of genetic screening to make ’designer babies’. Apart from its being an affront to people with disabilities to suggest that those born with physical or mental impairments should be ’bred out’ of the human race, to use genetic screening is to open up existing technology to widespread abuse. It is not inevitable that genetic screening will become widespread, but it is inevitable that if there is not an international moratorium on this development (as there should be), people will use it to select embryos conforming to stereotypes of intelligence, physical beauty, athleticism and so on.

[2] This is objectionable for three reasons. First, it envisages the use of human embryos as commodities and as resources of medical technology — as mere ’things’ rather than potential people. Those embryos that are rejected will be disposed of or indefinitely frozen. This is a dangerously cavalier attitude to take to human life. Second, it perpetuates the idea that those with physical ’defects’ are inferior human beings. This is a narrow and discriminatory approach, which is offensive to people with disabilities.

[3] This proposal would make embryos into commodities to be chosen between like objects on a supermarket shelf. Moreover, it is a fallacy to assume that everyone has a fundamental right to be a parent of their own biological children. Those who cannot have children should foster or adopt children without homes of their own, given the enormous number of orphans desperately in need of a family.

Possible motions

This House supports universal genetic screening.

This House would choose its babies.

Related topics

Genetic engineering

Surrogate mothers, payment of

Abortion on demand

Euthanasia, legalisation of