Embryos to be screened for cancer

[Tabby_Cat]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3970519.stm

Josephine Quintavalle of Comment on Reproductive Ethics said: "It’s a very big ethical step forward.

“The HFEA has yet again taken a big ethical decision without consulting the public.”

She said it was moving down a slippery slope from what had started as intervention for only disease that threatened the viability of the embryo to diseases that might appear in adulthood.

“We should be looking for medicines that cure not medicines that kill,” she said.

I don’t know. First reaction to reading this was “what? Medicines that kill? Hello?”, but perhaps other people believe that all life, no matter what quality it is, deserves to be given a chance.

This is talking about basically a 100% chance of contracting cancer in your teens, though. If you could have a world of genetically perfect people, Gattica style, would you go for it?

I have a feeling I would. Makes a lot more economic sense, and besides, humans have enough defects without having to deal with genetic ones. And people that aren’t born don’t care.