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October 25, 2002
Where the road may lead
Editorial
Earlier this month, the Israeli press reported that pre-embryonic
genetic diagnosis (PGD) had been used to enable an Israeli couple
to conceive a baby who would be a perfectly matched donor for a
brother in need of a bone marrow transplant. The four-year-old boy
was suffering from a rare and usually fatal genetic disease, Fanconi's
anemia. By replacing the boy's diseased bone marrow with healthy,
matched stem cells from his baby sister's umbilical cord, Israeli
doctors were able to grant the child a new lease on life.
In the case of the Israeli couple, doctors actually suggested that
they have another child through in-vitro fertilization. The embryo
was carefully selected as having the perfect match to allow the
umbilical cord to be used as a bone marrow transplant for the first
child. But should a couple bring a child into the world as a means
of curing another?
Asa Kasher, a Tel-Aviv University philosophy professor and ethicist
doesn't believe it's a problem.
"We tend to ignore the fact that the world has changed, and
that a large percentage of people decide to have children for a
variety of reasons. One can imagine an instance in which a marriage
counsellor advises a couple to have a child. That child may help
solve the parents' problems, but once he is born, who cares? He
is a child like any other, and the reason for bringing him into
the world doesn't matter."
Who is Kasher kidding? If a couple pins any hopes whatsoever of
a solution to a problem, be it marriage- or health-related, on the
birth of a child, they are setting themselves up for a huge disappointment
if it doesn't work and that's bound to turn to resentment directed
at the child. You'd have to be made of stone not to treat your child
differently if the reason you brought them into the world is not
realized. And what will that child think when he or she grows up
to learn that the reason they exist is because there was a problem
they were supposed to solve years earlier? If the relationship with
the parents is excellent (really, how many are?), there may be no
side effects. But if there is tension or dysfunctionality in the
relationship between parent and child, that child is going to know
and perhaps be haunted their entire life that they were not conceived
purely out of love.
Certainly one would not deny a couple the chance to save a child,
but parents making this type of decision must be aware of that they
are opening a Pandora's Box of emotions that may be difficult to
handle.
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