The decision to start a family often involves a number of considerations for both parents. Will you move to a larger apartment or to a detached, single-family house with a yard? Will one parent stay home with the child? In addition to these common questions, bioethical issues sometimes arise with family planning. These questions often involve heart-wrenching issues with no easy resolutions.
Gender Determination
Is it a boy or a girl? Usually you only want to know so that you can decide what to name the baby or how to decorate the nursery. But in many parts of the world, the results of prenatal ultrasound and amniocentesis tests often result in selective abortion of female babies. In countries like India and China, the result is a vast gender disparity, with ratios of 120 to 130 boy babies to 100 girl babies in China, and 1,000 boy babies to 770 to 845 girl babies in parts of India, according to the Christian Science Monitor. The motivation behind these unbalanced birth rates varies. In China, the government-mandated one-child policy is a driving force, while in India, the practice of dowry motivates the strong preference for boy babies.
Prenatal and Genetic Screening
As a result of advances in genetic testing, there is now reliable genetic testing for prospective parents as well as prenatal testing of developing fetuses for a variety of conditions, many of which are life-threatening, such as cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anemia, according to the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation and Merck. Other medical disorders are not life-threatening but still present significant quality-of-life issues, such as Down Syndrome. When presented with the possibility of conceiving a child with a genetic disorder, many couples choose not to have children. Others opt for genetic screening and prenatal testing with every pregnancy.
However, this is not always the case. According to Pandora, Arlo Guthrie chose not to be tested for Huntington's Disease, even though he had a 50 percent chance of inheriting the disease that killed his father, musician Woody Guthrie. TV personality Bree Walker had children even though she had a 50 percent chance of passing on her hand deformity called ectrodactyly, commonly known as lobster-claw syndrome. Both her children inherited the disorder, according to USA Today.
Savior Siblings
In certain rare medical disorders, the only reasonable hope for an effective treatment or a cure is a blood or bone marrow transfusion from a genetically matched donor. Parents, existing siblings or other close relatives are obvious first choices. However, when these choices do not exist, some families have deliberately conceived a child genetically screened to be a suitable donor. These "savior siblings" raise a number of ethical questions. Among the more disturbing is the possibility of escalation, or asking the "savior sibling" to donate a vital organ, or even creating donor banks of humans bred specifically for spare parts, according to the National Institute of Medical Research. Embryos not used for conception of these "savior siblings" present another ethical dilemma. According to the Catholic News Agency, discarding these fertilized embryos is equivalent to sanctioning eugenics.
References
- Christian Science Monitor: China's Surplus of Sons: a Geopolitical Time Bomb, Michael Fragoso
- Christian Science Montor: India's "Girl Deficit" Deepest Among Educated, Scott Baudalf
- Pandora: Arlo Guthrie--Biography
- USAToday: Embracing Her Inner Freak, William Keck
- National Institute of Medical Research: Are Savior Siblings a Humane and Proper Use of Reproductive Technology?, Tim Harrison
