Saving another Life
Controversy arises, too, about human leukocyte antigen (HLA) matching to enable future tissue donation from an
unaffected infant who is not yet born to a living affected child. Parents can thereby be creating a new child to donate tissue, regardless of that child’s eventual feelings and preferences. The new child would in effect be conceived and used in part as a means to an end – to provide tissue for a sibling.
If your first child was born with a fatal disease, would you create a second child to save the first one?
Would that motivation to have the second child still be out of love?
Clinics have opted to use PGD for this purpose, depending on various parameters such as the severity of and availability of alternative treatments for the existing child’s disease, and perhaps even the age of the mother. Yet
ethical questions have been raised. Individual liberty rights, including the rights of newborns, dictate that we cannot
intentionally harm, or place at risk, an individual without their consent. Are we causing harm at an embryonic stage?
unaffected infant who is not yet born to a living affected child. Parents can thereby be creating a new child to donate tissue, regardless of that child’s eventual feelings and preferences. The new child would in effect be conceived and used in part as a means to an end – to provide tissue for a sibling.
If your first child was born with a fatal disease, would you create a second child to save the first one?
Would that motivation to have the second child still be out of love?
Clinics have opted to use PGD for this purpose, depending on various parameters such as the severity of and availability of alternative treatments for the existing child’s disease, and perhaps even the age of the mother. Yet
ethical questions have been raised. Individual liberty rights, including the rights of newborns, dictate that we cannot
intentionally harm, or place at risk, an individual without their consent. Are we causing harm at an embryonic stage?