Bio-Ethical Essay - Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis

1. No, I would not do pre-implantation genetic diagnosis if money was no object. I do not think that it is right to go through the genetic information of an embryo and decide what you want and what you do not want. I think that all physical attributes such as height, hair color, and eye color, should be decided naturally. As well as the physical attributes, I think genetic disorders and hereditary diseases should be left alone. If they were in the genetic makeup of the human embryo, then God has a reason for them to be there. God may want that human to grow up to face the disease, then survive, telling an inspiring story about how they overcame that struggle. It may also be there for God to show his mercy. The child may have a potentially high risk of a particular disease by a certain age, but end up not getting the disease at all. As well as some diseases and disorders being part of God’s will, I also think that it is becoming partly racist. People are wanting to choose what they think is ‘perfect’ for their child, when in all reality it may be no where close. Society’s definition of ‘perfect’ may not be healthy for a child. Eventually, parents would decide to have a ‘regular’ and ‘perfect’ child just like the rest of our society, making the world have no variety in human looks. Just as Hitler had, some might look at pre-implantation genetic diagnosis as singling out the ‘perfect race’, or as Hitler said, the Aryan Race. After a while, parents might end up choosing ultimately everything they want to have in their child, expelling any imperfections, flaws, disorders, or diseases. Then, if one disease happens to pass by the genetic diagnosis, the child might be criticized and cast out from our society. This could possibly lead to immense and massive racism.

2. I agree with the final statement that Arthur Caplan makes. By looking at the human genome for disease and disorders, we are moving towards genetically making our own children. We might end up deciding everything about our child that we want physically. We, as a society, have to decide to put limitations on how far we will go with pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. By putting limitations on genetic scanning, we have to also make the decision to stay within these guidelines. If we decide to have them, we need to follow them and not cross the line. Even if we began to push the line and decide every disease and disorder we don’t want to have, we will slowly get closer and closer to complete design. Once the society is exposed to this new process, some may want to choose everything they want their child to have. Once we start pre-implantation more commonly, we will most likely move towards designer babies being completely normal. If this does happen, we might begin to repeat history over again. Just as the Nazis did, there will become the “perfect race” but this time they will be genetically perfect. Because of these reasons, I definitely agree that our society is moving towards this, although we may not want to. There is a very fine line that we must be careful not to cross in pre-implantation genetic diagnosis.