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Sex-Selection by Embryo Screening Approved for US Trial
LifeSiteNews.com ^ | 28 October 2005

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Front Page News; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: bioethics; embryo; frankenstein; ivf; life; science; sexselection; slipperyslope
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To: Salvation

Who are you to determine the will of God?


61 posted on 10/27/2005 8:42:34 PM PDT by Almondjoy
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To: Gerish
What about surgery? You still haven't answered that question, and it breaks down your argument. Surgery that saves someone's life. Shouldn't they just have died, instead of using technology to survive, by your thinking?

I doubt you'll answer this. You're too brainwashed...

62 posted on 10/27/2005 8:42:39 PM PDT by gamarob1
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To: gamarob1

"As far as gender selection, the article did say that it's reserved for couples who already have a child of the other gender."

Now it is. Give it time.


63 posted on 10/27/2005 8:45:46 PM PDT by MonaMars
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To: gamarob1

Amazing, liberal: "Surgery that saves someone's life ... Shouldn't they just have died, instead of using technology to survive, by your thinking?" You missed the cogent part about 'taking someone else's body parts for the surgery and discarding the source', or do you condone that also in your liberal world?


64 posted on 10/27/2005 8:47:17 PM PDT by MHGinTN (If you can read this, you've had life support from someone. Promote life support for others.)
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To: MonaMars

Typical slippery slope error. This isn't China. China has made the error of limiting one of the most basic human things, reproduction, and a mostly un-Christian and uninformed public act like animals in response. Educating people about these matters is the answer, not destruction of technology.


65 posted on 10/27/2005 8:48:08 PM PDT by gamarob1
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To: gamarob1
I have a strong feeling that you must defend this process. I don't know why, and I don't care to know why. However, the process is evil. It destroys human life: completely innocent human life. That is evil. It is done by the choice of a human being who wants to be in control. He or she wants to have the power of God.

This is, as usual, the retelling of the story of eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. The tree exists, but God has told us not to eat the fruit. It's the first story. It's the foundation of the Judeo-Christian life. I feel terribly sorry for anyone who is so very blind to the horror and tragedy of IVF.

How does a parent who has a child via IVF tell that child that he or she is the lucky one; his brothers and sisters were frozen, given away or sold for science? One doesn't, of course. Why not?

66 posted on 10/27/2005 8:49:23 PM PDT by MSSC6644
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To: MHGinTN
You can label me "liberal" all you want, if that satisfies your need to judge the world. IVF doesn't take the baby's body parts. It creates a baby.

What is done with the other embryos is a matter of education, not blind prohibition

67 posted on 10/27/2005 8:49:41 PM PDT by gamarob1
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To: Gerish

So then you must believe that we have no free will. For God gives us all a choice.

Does God say it's evil to want a child?

If you enter marriage knowing that you can only have a child through artfical means(as in my previous example) does it make them evil to go ahead and marry and precede with that?

Remember abortion is ridding one's self of a responsiblity.

IVF is taking one on.

No where does the bible say life begins as a clump of cells. The fact remains that many Christians are oppose to abortion because it's sends the wrong message. It allows people to escape their responsiblities.

While IVF can be used for evil. God can also not to inject those "clump of cells" with a life of a soul because he wants his children to experience the joy's of parenthood.

Like I said.. don't be so quick to know God's will. You can only be so lucky.


68 posted on 10/27/2005 8:51:05 PM PDT by Almondjoy
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To: MSSC6644

I defend it because I know too many Christians who were blessed by it. It's not evil. It's mere technology. You've bought a bill of goods from someone, but don't understand what's really involved in the steps. Death isn't required in it. Inevidably it happens because most of the public ISN'T CHRISTIAN!!! Why can't you people see that? If you tell them what's right, they'll even do IVF the right way, and not throw embryos in the garbage. But that's the answer, not just destroying that which has blessed millions...


69 posted on 10/27/2005 8:51:32 PM PDT by gamarob1
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To: gamarob1

My my, you seem to love technology at all costs. Ever read about the vast technological ability of the Romans to pipe water to there homes via lead pipes? Oh, by your 'profile page' the Cal flag indicates you are very possibly a supporter of the stem cell harvesting from alive embryo-aged humans. Congratulations on your support of cannibalism, btw.


70 posted on 10/27/2005 8:52:06 PM PDT by MHGinTN (If you can read this, you've had life support from someone. Promote life support for others.)
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To: MHGinTN
Wow, you have some hate there, man, woman, whatever...

Now I'm evil for living in California!!! LOL. Run along, skippy, I think there's someone somewhere enjoying their life.

71 posted on 10/27/2005 8:53:32 PM PDT by gamarob1
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To: Almondjoy

You offered, "Like I said.. don't be so quick to know God's will. You can only be so lucky." Ahem, and you are so close to the Almighty that you 'know' when the spirit is newly resident in the alive human? Would you like to let us in on the secret?


72 posted on 10/27/2005 8:54:48 PM PDT by MHGinTN (If you can read this, you've had life support from someone. Promote life support for others.)
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To: gamarob1

'skippy' ... bwahahahaha, good one! I like their peanut butter, don't you?


73 posted on 10/27/2005 8:55:54 PM PDT by MHGinTN (If you can read this, you've had life support from someone. Promote life support for others.)
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To: MSSC6644

Do you believe that miscarried babies of 1 week or 2 months.. or whatever time frame are in heaven?

Do you believe they had a life deserving of heaven?


74 posted on 10/27/2005 8:56:08 PM PDT by Almondjoy
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To: gamarob1
That's still not a reason to eradicate the entire technology that has conceived children for countless infertile couples, including Christians. What the general population does, follows in line with a sinful humanity. But educating them is the answer, not blindly destroying technology that does good.

That good can arise from manifest evil is certainly beyond dispute over the long history of human evil in pursuit of good, both real and imagined.

The technology of IVF traffics in death. Death is an integral part of the technology. It's a matter of percentages, very unfavorable percentages from the viewpoint of the microscopic humans which are created and destroyed in its shotgun approach towards pregnancy.

The Talmud, a millenia old book of Jewish theological scholarship, has this to say on the subject:

"The governor of my town has ordered me to kill so-and-so, 'if not,' he says, 'I will kill you'."

[Raba] answered him, "Let him slay you rather than you commit murder. Who knows that your blood is redder? Perhaps his blood is redder."
Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 74a

... and this ...

He who destroys a life is as if he destroyed an entire world; and he who saves a life is as if he saved an entire world.
Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 37a

Playing the odds with IVF, you get to destroy many worlds while creating one.

I understand the intensity of the pull towards a biological child. I felt it deeply, and we grieved for the loss of the blood son or daughter my wife and I are unable to have. It's a process one has to go through to ready oneself to welcome someone else's unwanted child - who for whatever reason was NOT killed before birth - into your own family.

Someone who considers themselves to be a serious Christian or Jew, I think ought to consider the moral and ethical issues of IVF very carefully before proceeding.

75 posted on 10/27/2005 8:57:11 PM PDT by mvpel (Michael Pelletier)
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To: gamarob1

How would you feel about IVF done one conceptus at a time instead of several in petri dishes?


76 posted on 10/27/2005 8:57:22 PM PDT by MHGinTN (If you can read this, you've had life support from someone. Promote life support for others.)
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To: gamarob1
You've bought a bill of goods from someone, but don't understand what's really involved in the steps.

That has to be one of the most ironic statements you've made in this entire thread. I have just one more comment, and then I'm off to bed.

THE END NEVER JUSTIFIES THE MEANS.

77 posted on 10/27/2005 8:57:22 PM PDT by MSSC6644
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To: MHGinTN
I'll accept your offer of peace. Yes, good peanut butter

IVF has helped more people than you know, many who serve Jesus Christ. I know many IVF doctors who are Christians. If done right, there's no problem. Your crusade should focus on proper use of the technology, not robbing mankind of it.

78 posted on 10/27/2005 8:57:28 PM PDT by gamarob1
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To: mvpel
I don't hold any value in the Talmud at all, so you're wasting your time

God has blessed many with this technology. If done right, there's no problem. I'm sorry if that robs you of the opportunity to make a moral grandstand.

79 posted on 10/27/2005 8:58:44 PM PDT by gamarob1
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To: MSSC6644

By the way movies have killed people too. But through tv, radio, and not to mention the internet God's people have been able to reach billions like never before. Able to spread his word.

I guess TV is evil too.


80 posted on 10/27/2005 9:00:13 PM PDT by Almondjoy
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