Church warns of designer children

[CShine]

IVF specialists and the Catholic church have clashed over the creation of a baby designed to save his sick brother, with the church declaring the technology could transform parenting into nothing more than a "planning exercise".

Sydney doctors this week said they had used both IVF and genetic screening to ensure the second child of a Tasmanian couple did not suffer from the genetic disease which affects their only son. They screened embryos for the rare genetic disease - hyper IgM syndrome - and selected one capable of providing the four-year-old boy with a life-saving bone marrow transplant.

While the genetic screening and the tissue-matching technology have been used for up to three years, this week's announcement has caused concern about its future application.

Bishop Anthony Fisher, a health ethics spokesman for the Catholic church, said: "Any technological development that is a project that we control rather than a gift we receive is a concern. We are on the verge of an attitude to parenting where parents could plan their children's eye and hair colour, or intelligence and sexuality, and select out any babies that have asthma or a predisposition to heart disease in later life."

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/08/1078594301535.html

[DuctapeFatwa]

1. Why? do intelligence reports indicate that they are planning an attack?

[PROGRESSIVE1]

2. I agree with the church on this one issue. I am 100% opposed to...

the idea of "designer children".

Isn't this what Hitler wanted???

:eyes:

[phantom power]

4. so...

should the parents have just rolled the dice, and *hoped* that their second child won't have this disease?

I don't see what the problem is. If I had a tool at my disposal for improving the odds for my child's health, I'd use it.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

8. I see nothing wrong with improving the health of the baby. I do not...

want to see parents determining things such as gender, eye color, abilities. I have ethical problems with that aspect.

[Dogmudgeon]

3. I'm sure that God in His wisdom ...

... afflicted that little boy with Hyper-IgM for a good purpose.

Like, maybe to keep the attention of His holy church off things like tyranny, disease, starvation, and misery.

--bkl

[Ratty]

5. The issue is here to stay

Can couples design out homosexuality? Deafness? How about Asian couples designing in some nice, round eyes, or very small feet. How about eliminating diabetes or a genetic disposition toward schizophrenia. Or ADD? Designer babies are almost here and they ain't gonna go away.

[pinto]

6. the article implies second child was concieved as donor for first born...

if so that is, imho, a very complicated ethical choice, for all concerned.

[Sandpiper]

7. We must stand against the evil of "designer children"

Because it is the will of a loving God that children be born with downs syndrome, autism, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, etc.

How dare anyone try to prevent these things. :eyes:

[terryg11]

9. so are the rights of the new child second to those of the first?

that's one of the many questions that should be asked. Let's say donating bone marrow is found to be medically risky for the new child possibly at the price of his own life, are the parents still allowd to sacrifce this new one to better serve the first?

also, in your apparent dislike for the church some of you are missing the point. Evolution took millions of years to bring us to where we are now and is most likely not done with us. Before we start promoting gene manipulation to give us our dream kids we need to ask at what costs? How will this affect humans in the future if we don't allow for any mutations or changes to occur within our own species?

[phantom power]

13. there are two issues (at least)

1) Is it ethical to manipulate our genome to prevent known diseases?

2) Is it ethical to create a child for the *sole* purpose of harvesting his tissue, for the benefit of some other person?


I would argue that (1) is ethical, and (2) is not.

[terryg11]

14. agreed

I would be in favor of gene manipulation to help prevent known diseases as long as we studied possible long term consequences (if there would be any).

[phantom power]

10. "any technological development"

> "Any technological development that is a project that we control rather than a gift we receive is a concern."

This sentence captures everything I disrespect about religion. Anything good in life is only *really* good if it happens by blind luck. If I try to take *control* of my life to make it better, I must be evil.

Parenting *ought* to be a planning exercise. Just because I apply planning to my life doesn't mean it's "just" planning. That's a classic logical fallacy.

Sad, but completely unremarkable, coming from a spokesperson from the Catholic Church, which has diligently fought against family planning, and pretty much every other benefit of the Age of Reason for the last 500 years.

[lefthandedskyhook]

11. Sci-fi will no longer be fiction!

Hi folks,

This is my first post here at DU... the topic is one I have considered for some time now.

The prospect of human genetic engineering is both exciting and disturbing. It seems that science will undoubtedly first succeed at correcting many health problems. I think that the inevitable progression of this path will result in 'enhancements' like increased physical and/or mental prowess. As these changes are built up through multiple generations, the human race will craft its own path of evolution -- just imagine the possibilities.

Of course, most of humanity will be effectively left behind (the process will not be available to everyone). I just hope that these new 'super-humans' will be kind to others!

[kimchi]

15. Welcome to DU, lefthandedskyhook!

Enjoy!

[newyawker99]

20. Hi lefthandedskyhook!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[SoCalDem]

12. They should BUTT OUT.. This stuff is NOT going to be used widely

Only rich people will take advantage of expensive procedures like this.. 99.9999999999999 % of people will still have their babies the same way as always.. It disgusts me immensely to see all the energy and excitement over medical procedures that will NEVER be used by most people..

They should concentrate on ways to keep the priests' willies away from adolescent parishioners..

[ret5hd]

16. "Only rich people"..that's the problem...

(btw, as an atheist i have no religious problems with this)

Read post #11.

Do you have a problem today with the rich receiving a higher quality of education? I think that in the future we (as a race, not necessarily you and I) this will be analogous to our education disparity...but with far more serious consequences.

What will the situation be like generations fom now when the rich can afford to genetically choose (at first) or modify (later) their offspring and be guaranteed a chid of genius stock? What about the rest of us? "Cross-breeding" (between the "modified/rich" and "normal/poor" offspring) would drop off because of the undesirability of "normal" traits, leading inevitably toward speciation. Not over eons, but over generations. There would be no more class mobility, because even the genious normal child would not stand a chance against a designed child.

One could even imagine a system developing where the rich would pay the poor to bear children designed as the warrior class. They certainly show no signs of being willing to risk their own at this time.

I don't know. I have no problems with the situation described in the original posting. I am assuming that the parents will be as caring and loving for the second child as the obviously are the first.

But I don't think we, as a race, are socially advanced enough to handle the ramifications of this field.

[Malva Zebrina]

17. well I suppose the couple could have had five more children that

would be affected by the same disease before they had one that was not. They will have baptized and subsequently buried every single one of them and would have KNOWN before hand that they were doomed to die an early childhood death. How nice to be able to birth a suffering child. Is that what the good old boys in the Vatican would demand of this mother? I know suffering is supposed to be good in that religion, but come on--how much can they put a woman through?

[Eureka]

18. What a beat up!

I find it remarkable that this is causing so much outrage, it's surely not much more involved than the tests already performed for things such as spina bifida and downs syndrome (except that there is no abortion as such involved)

There was no Genetic Engineering, just selection based on certain traits, the same as for other screening.

It's not like they grew a child just to fix an existing one, the parents have said on many occasions that they were going to have another anyway, so why not try to make sure it will heal the first.

It's not only because they are rich. Australia has a fairly socialistic health care system, there was no need for them to be millionaires or anything. The only rich poor gap here is between Australia and poorer countries, but I think people should be able to take advantage of what their local environment has to offer, fighting the disparity between rich and poor internationally is a different fight.

Just my 2 cents worth (thats about 1.6 cents US)

[FlaGranny]

19. This is a field that can be used for great good

or great evil. It scares me. What I don't understand, as a nonbeliever, is why people object on religious grounds to scientists actually using their supposedly God-given intelligence and talents. Or is it believed that intelligence and knowledge to accomplish scientific advancements comes from evil, i.e., the devil? In that case, it seems we should all "religiously" suppress our "God-given" intelligence so we don't do anything bad. If that's the case, makes one wonder why God would give us intelligence in the first place.

[Cronus Protagonist]

21. Tell me where I can get a couple of these designer children

I want two. One boy that never grows up and another female one with wings who never grows larger than an embryo.

I plan on letting Michael Jackson buy them from me.

"FUCK BUSH" Buttons, Stickers & Magnets

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

22. I want one to be a DK and the other one Gucci.