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Friday, April 29, 2005

Better Living Thru Science?

A British couple got the go-ahead to use IVF to conceive an embryo tissue-matched to their ailing son, so the embryo can be used to treat the child's rare blood disorder.

They've conceived twice naturally. They aborted one baby because it had the blood disorder. The other baby was born but wasn't a tissue match.

Clearly what they intend to do is have each IVF embryo screened to see which ones are a match, implant the matches, and flush the rest.

I can only hope that the tissue match embryos are at least carried to term, not aborted for their sibling's sake.

While I'm all for research to help sick children, this seems ghoulish to me -- making babies one after the other looking for specific traits and letting the "right" one live. Surely there's a better way to do this!

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