Every day we turn on the news we see more and more stories of pain and hurt. Breast cancer awareness and walks for leukemia flood media. We’re encouraged to help, to donate for research, to do our part in general, but what if we had a way to diminish the number of people with these ailments? Should we use it? There is a method called preimplantation genetic diagnosis. PDG involves removing a cell from an embryo created through In Vitro fertilization, or IVF, to test for specific genetic conditions before transferring the chosen embryo to the uterus. Should eugenic techniques like PDGS or preimplantation genetic diagnosis and selection, screening and choosing embryos for diseases prior to implanting them into a woman seeking pregnancy, be allowed
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I will do so by challenging the arguments against PGDS and with the claim that it reduces suffering for the child that will be born. There is a distinction to be made between the permissibility and encouragement of PGDS, which is what I am addressing in my paper, and the duty and obligation to utilize the technique.
Now some would argue whether the notion that selecting against disabilities can actually lead to less suffering for the person born, and rightfully so. We can all agree that certain disabilities and diseases mean painful and arduous lives for individuals afflicted; however,I argue that the person born is not a compilation of DNA but rather who they are in this world. Initially, that would be “first born child.” Derek Parfit (1984) has argued that most reproductive choices cannot benefit a future child before the choice of one embryo over the other changes the genetic identity of that child. So, to choose one embryo over the other causes a different child to come into existence. This stance implies that the identity of a child is based on a unique genetic makeup. If we were to use that logic and judge identity only by
I will do so by challenging the arguments against PGDS and with the claim that it reduces suffering for the child that will be born. There is a distinction to be made between the permissibility and encouragement of PGDS, which is what I am addressing in my paper, and the duty and obligation to utilize the technique.
Now some would argue whether the notion that selecting against disabilities can actually lead to less suffering for the person born, and rightfully so. We can all agree that certain disabilities and diseases mean painful and arduous lives for individuals afflicted; however,I argue that the person born is not a compilation of DNA but rather who they are in this world. Initially, that would be “first born child.” Derek Parfit (1984) has argued that most reproductive choices cannot benefit a future child before the choice of one embryo over the other changes the genetic identity of that child. So, to choose one embryo over the other causes a different child to come into existence. This stance implies that the identity of a child is based on a unique genetic makeup. If we were to use that logic and judge identity only by