"First baby in Britain designed cancer-free"

From the UK Times Online:

A WOMAN is pregnant with Britain’s first designer baby selected to prevent an inherited cancer, The Times can reveal.

Her decision to use controversial genetic-screening technology will ensure that she does not pass on to her child the hereditary form of eye cancer from which she suffers.

Although they did not have fertility problems, the woman and her partner created embryos by IVF. This allowed doctors to remove a cell and test it for the cancer gene, so only unaffected embryos were transferred to her womb.

Differently worded, "only unaffected embryos were allowed to survive." Notice that since this (particular) human being is wanted, it is a "baby" not a "fetus."

Critics argue that the action is unethical because it involves the destruction of some embryos that would never contract these illnesses if they were allowed to develop into children. Even those that would potentially become ill could expect many years of healthy life first, and some of the disorders involved are treatable or preventable.

...

Josephine Quintavalle, of the embryo rights group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: “We mustn’t forget the embryos that were not given a chance to live. This is a worrying application because we are looking at a condition that is treatable.”

... Up to 95 per cent of tumours detected early can be treated, but this requires chemotherapy and surgery that can cause blindness.

Genetic screening for everything from breast to bowel cancer is on the horizon. Genetic screening normally results in the abortion or destruction of disease bearing (or more often, even disease "at-risk") embryos.

Oh, and as far as being "designed cancer free", well, it's true the baby won't develop the treatable cancer mentioned in the article. But a cure to the cancer wasn't found. Instead, they just killed the babies that did inherit the predisposition. Some solution.

Read the full article.