Explanation Genetic Diagnosis Essay

The issue of sex-based abortion is a worldwide issue that most countries are dealing with, and have been dealing with for years. It has been a trend to birth a boy so the family name can carry on or so royal families have an heir to their throne. But some cultures are very strict on the issue and make mothers abort their child if it is not the desired sex. Could this abortion of children go hand-in-hand with gender selection and in vitro fertilization to eliminate the inheritance of disease within a family? Preimplanation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) was initially used to eliminate the chances of a baby being at risk for certain inheritable diseases, but has since grown into the idea of developing a similar process that will be used to ‘customize’ a baby. Political Philosopher Michael Sandel believes it will lead to creating that ‘perfect’ child, saying “(sex selection) is one step down the road to designer children, in which parents would choose not only the sex of their child but also conceivably the height, hair color, eye color, and ultimately, perhaps, IQ, athletic prowess and musical ability. It’s troubling” (Stein). Would doing this be fair or humane? When will/did having the ‘perfect’ child go from meaning ‘healthy with all …show more content…
Prenatal testing’s would, however, “leave the couple faced with a decision of whether to undergo a “genetic abortion” as late as twenty-four weeks into the pregnancy” but these “genetic or therapeutic abortions often place the mother at risk and are frequently accompanied by a tremendous amount of guilt or grief arising out of the couple’s own genetic status”(Roberts). However, according to the US National Library of Medicine, “Many people see aborting a fetus as ‘killing’, whereas in the case of PGD the spare embryos are ‘allowed to die’”