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Maiden Mother Matriarch with Louise Perry
DEBATE: Is it wrong to handpick your baby's genes?
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Testing a foetus or an embryo for some medical conditions is now a routine part of the modern pregnancy experience. Prenatal Down’s Syndrome tests, for instance, are now so widespread that in some Scandinavian countries almost 100 per cent of women choose to abort a foetus diagnosed with the condition, or – if using IVF – not implant the affected embryo. The result is a visible change to these populations: there are simply no more people with Down’s to be seen on the streets of Iceland and Denmark.
New technology is now available – at a high price – for those who want to go further. So-called polygenic embryo screening can give a very full picture of the adult that the embryo could become, including his or her vulnerability to an enormous number of diseases – heart disease, diabetes, cancer – and also the physical and psychological traits that he or she would likely possess: height, hair colour, athletic ability, conscientiousness, altruism, intelligence.
Is this a good thing? Should we welcome a world in which parents are routinely selecting their embryos in this way?
I'm joined today by two guests who take a very different view.
Emma Waters is a policy analyst at the Center for Technology and the Human Person at the Heritage Foundation. Her work focuses on family, biotechnology, and reproductive medicine.
Jonathan Anomaly is a philosopher, author of the book 'Creating Future People: The Science and Ethics of Genetic Enhancement', and is also the director of scientific research and communication for Herasight, a genetics startup that offers polygenic embryo screening.
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