Posted on 10/27/2005 7:20:09 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
HOUSTON, October 27, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An experiment has been underway for a month in a Houston Texas where parents are permitted to ask scientists for a child with the gender of their choice. The procedure involves preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) which is able to detect the sex of embryos created by in vitro fertilization (IVF) prior to their implantation in their mothers' wombs.
While sex selection via PGD has been allowed in some cases where sex-linked diseases are concerned, the clinical trial is seeking to gage the impact of sex selection at the whim of the parents. According to the journal Nature, the researchers, led by Sandra Carlson of Baylor College of Medicine, will be studying the long term health effect to the children born after PGD and also the social impact on the families.
The fundamental ethical problems behind PGD lie in its origin of IVF which creates children outside of the loving union of a man and a woman. Moreover, the lives of the embryonic children conceived by the IVF procedure are under severe threat since the latest statistics have revealed that over 85% of embryos transferred in the procedure die in the process.
However, with those arguments ignored, and IVF accepted as a moral procedure in most of the world, researchers are left looking at PGD as perhaps problematic since it may cause sex discrimination as is the case in China and India. Both countries have seen a discrepancy in the ratio of boys and girls born since one-child policies and discrimination against female children have resulted in abortion being used to eliminate female babies in utero.
PGD sex selection is banned in Canada, Britain and several other countries for that reason. However the researchers are suggesting sex selection may be ethical for 'family balancing'. The researchers have said they will only accept couples into the trial who have a child and want another child of the opposite sex.
PGD is already routinely used to screen out embryos with genetic defects. Thus those embryonic children with disabilities are disposed of (read killed) prior to being given a chance to be born, a fact which has been of serious concern to groups advocating for the disabled.
This is no different.
Don't speak in the name of the Lord with such hate for fellow man and Christians.
Your ignorance is boring, thanks for the yawn, hypocrite.
They won't. Widows and orphans aren't a priority of the GOP, sadly...
God Bless you too!
Cool! Pretty soon we'll be just like China! < /sarcasm >
Doesn't mean much to say, after you've basically condemned every Christian who has had IVF, hypocrite...
"The procedure involves preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) which is able to detect the sex of embryos created by in vitro fertilization (IVF) prior to their implantation in their mothers' wombs." But But But ... you mean these 'undifferentiated cells' have already differentiated to express male or female direction in their lifetime? Why you could knock me down with a feather! You mean the leftist craptittutes have been lying to US? ... (/sarcasm) The death and exploitation of the youngest humans industry is completely founded on lies, lies the liberal public are willing to keep swallowing in order to indulge their magic thinking.
PGD is often done in IVF and it is helping couples have children. Testing the embryo, and now even the egg before conception is becoming a fantastic way to predict the potential birth of a much-wanted baby! They can't help but know the sex of an embryo when it is used, of course.
This is not really such a Brave New World scenario. They are seeing what life will be like for families who have children on one gender and would like to try parenting the other kind, but wouldn't like to go it naturally and wait for the 8th child. I don't have a problem with it. As long as they donate any unwanted embryos to the infertile couples waiting on long lists to adopt embryos.
This orginally started with parent's trying to avoid sex linked diseases. I have no problem with that, but when it goes to family "balancing" and stuff it gets a little iffy. But then it is probably cheaper in the long run for a family than those who choose to have 5 + children hoping to finally get a boy. When I see that I always wonder if the father takes the saying that "baby girls are God's punishment for the father's teen years" to heart.
Well on this issue, it's not the same as abortion. If they want a girl after so many boys, I don't see anything wrong with that.
**Further down the slippery slope we slide...**
Absolutely!
Lord have mercy!
Christ have mercy!
Lord have mercy!
Yawn again......
Exactly. Thank you for voicing words of sanity. I thought I was alone here...
And you think this is ANY technology? Does ANY technology murder so many human beings?
This is all indicative of selfishness on the part of mankind. Sadly, men and women do not seem to be able to accept the will of God.
May they be forgiven for these connivings.
Bad bad bad bad bad idea! Very bad.
You spittled out, "He (GOD) has permitted that man can ...", and then you infer that 'can' means should. Do you understand that murder is something man 'can' do but God frowns upon? No, you can't see that clearly ... those who have eyes to see and all that. Eat you chicken little meals now.
If they donate the embryos, then that would be the ideal way to go. If they don't, well, I can't stop people from killing, smoking, having unsafe sex, etc... It's a sinful world, haven't you realized that yet?
The will of God is that such technology exists to help the infertile. Can you accept the will of God?
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