PGD the New Eugenics

Men are attracted to different women with different qualities such as appearance, intelligence, or any other characteristics that they value. The qualities that these women posses and the selection that people make for their decision of who they will marry and have children with is itself a process of selection of traits that people want for their children to ultimately inherit.

If possible to them, parents will always chose the best education for their children they can afford, and provide them with the best available resources, and if in any way possible, provide them with opportunities in life that will increase their children’s chances of survival and success in the world they are brought into. Increasing the chances of their child being born healthy is something every parent would try to achieve by any means available.

PGD gives parents the opportunity to select the most desired embryo after all genetic screening has been performed in several ones. No matter where such selection occurs, within a woman’s womb or in a test tube, the process involves discarding the “unwanted embryos”.

Although, eugenics restricts people’s freedom of reproduction through government control, I think that PGD is the new form of eugenics born in view of technological advancements which make possible that not only governments but other entities have the power of choosing to kill their embryos. I consider it as is morally wrong and unethical.

 The answer to the question why such selections are unethical depends on the purpose and technologies used. If science and technology make possible genetic testing and determination of traits in a man or women that could possibly cause any type of disorder in offsprings before the conception and embryo formation and the couple decided not to conceive that might be acceptable in my opinion. If such determinations are made in an embryo and parents decide to kill it; this is unethical. Likewise, I consider unethical the selection of the “best” embryo and discarding the others.

Couples who decide to use PGD in the expectation of having a child with no risk of development of future diseases such as diabetes 2 or cardiac heart disease is absurd because they would be ignoring environmental influences, and the mere fact that we do not have a full understanding of all the genes in our body especially the ones that could someday be at higher risk for developing a disease.
In the end, no matter how hard people can try, there will always be mutations in the germ line, unexpected defects, and unknown diseases that will occur.  With time, new diseases will be discovered and there can always be errors in genetic screening.

Those who tarnish or possess a threat to people’s perception of a utopian society would not be accepted and subsequently become socially isolated. I feel as though PGD is a new form of eugenics in that it would damage our society.  Through PGD, we as a society might become too focused in creating the ‘perfect’ embryo and disregarding the others for missing a desired gene, that we will lose a sense of compassion and that sensitivity that makes us human.

Individuals with fragile X syndrome, down syndrome and other genetic disabilities make the world a better place to live in. They are living proof that life can be fulfilling although they are not the same as everyone else. Should we have killed them once we learned that they had such diseases?

It is not wrong for a parent to want the best for their child whether it is in genetic advantages or tangible resources in the world, rather it is something very noble. However, the lengths to achieve these genetic advantages through PGD and killing embryos is not something that should be done unless screening for a known disease in family history.