conversations

about genetics

if both genetic donors are carriers of a disease, there's a 25% chance for each pregnancy that the child will have the disease.

if they are both carriers for more than one disease, there's a 25% chance for each disease in each potential pregnancy.

the options are as follows:

1. the couple can decide not to try for their own child and adopt

2. the couple can take sperm and eggs and create embryos in a lab, testing each before implanting.  this is expensive, but still less expensive than the medical bills incurred by having and raising (and/or treating) a child with a fatal disease.

3. the couple can take their chances, getting pregnant naturally, then testing the placenta and/or amnio fluid, then aborting.

4. the couple can take their chances and carry every pregnancy to full term.

so there are a few things that really disturb me in all this.

first of all, it's sad that people would have to choose to keep trying and aborting.  it's scarring, both physically and emotionally, and i'm not sure how i feel about it from a moral/ethical standpoint.

it's only a skip and a jump to feeling a bit uncomfortable with testing embryos.  i think i depends on what you're testing for.  some diseases are fatal, some are not immediately fatal.

but what keeps ringing in my head is that, for eastern european jews, cystic fibrosis is on the list of diseases that are tested.  does that mean that a couple wouldn't implant an embryo with CF?  all i can think of is mikey, and that if this had all been available 25-30 years ago, he would probably have not been born.  mikey added so much to this world, and changed so many lives - the idea that all of this testing could wipe such a soul from the earth makes me nervous.  edgy.  uncomfortable.

and how long until we're testing for other abnormalities?  are we going to wipe mental retardation form the earth?  should we be checking embryos for a certain sex before implanting, once we're testing the DNA anyhow?

i am 100% behind having options to avoid the heartache and pain of bringing a child into this world who will die within a few years.  but i'm not sure how far beyond that the line should be drawn.