And what's the bigger implication for society? Here's a portion of an article on The Heritage Foundation website about Nobel prizewinner Robert Edwards, developer of IV, that should arouse the concern of all about the potential for coercive eugenic screening. Is that coming next?
As Edwards worked to develop procedures and culture media that could sustain human life, many of his research subjects died, including embryos conceived using his own sperm. In addition to refining the success rate and safety of his techniques, Edwards developed techniques for pre-implantation genetic diagnosis that would allow parents to identify genetic diseases before taking the developing human being from the petri dish to the womb. The same techniques increasingly allow scientists to select embryos on the basis of their sex or other desired physical characteristics, practices that remain controversial.
“Soon it will be a sin of parents,” Edwards reportedly said in 1999, “to have a child that carries the heavy burden of genetic disease. We are entering a world where we have to consider the quality of our children.”
