EXPERIMENT FIRST--RULES LATER :

"Designer baby" ruling stokes controversy (Emma Young, 02 August 02, New Scientist)

A UK couple has been refused permission to create a baby that could save the life of their seriously ill son. The controversial decision highlights the lack of moral and legal clarity in this fast-changing area of medicine, say ethicists.

Michelle and Jayson Whitaker's three-year-old son suffers from a rare blood disorder called Diamond-Blackfan anaemia. To live a normal life, he needs a transplant of stem cells from the umbilical cord of a perfectly matched donor. But the regulatory UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority rejected his parents' application to create and screen embryos, with the aim of producing a tissue-matched baby.

The procedure would be "unlawful and unethical", says the HFEA, because tissue-type screening alone is not permitted in the UK. It can only be used in combination with genetic screening, to ensure an embryo is itself free from a serious congenital disease. Charlie Whitaker's condition is not inherited--and so could not be screened for.

It is completely irresponsible for societies to rush headlong into a future of "engineering" human beings without pausing to think about where we're headed and what the ramifications will be. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 6, 2002 8:56 PM