User:Nightlord256/Sandbox

=Ethics of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis= Preimplantation genetic diagnosis or PGD, is an offshoot of In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) technology, and allows for the genetic screening of an embryo before insertion. This allows parents who undergo IVF to select for or against certain traits in their children. There are arguments both for and against this technology, which heavily revolve around the potential for discrimination and selective genetic drift in a population.

Pro
The purpose of IVF is to provide a couple that could not normally conceive with a healthy child. It was this procedure that first gave rise to PGD, to facilitate IVF and reduce the risk of stillbirths and miscarriages. It is the belief of those in favor of PGD that since giving birth to a healthy child is considered to be a good thing for the world that people have a negative right to reproduce and therefore should access to IVF and PGD if those technologies are necessary for them to bring a child into the world.

Those who support PGD for those with a physiological need tend to support the view, citing research and the above arguments, that access to IVF and PGD by those without a physiological need is also a negative right. As to deny them access to this procedure based on physiological need would be discriminatory towards those who do need it. It is also a belief that restriction of this would impede a parent’s moral imperative to provide the best possible life for their children. Citation needed

Con
There is some early research that indicates PGD may actually cause a lower rate of successful fertilization (further citation needed). Expansion needed

Pro
PGD involves the selection of certain embryos over others. However there exist no clear guidelines for the selection of these embryos. The decision is mainly based on fertility, however increasingly other factors are being taken into account. The President’s Council on Bioethics has stated that they are worried that selecting against certain traits will lead to a selection drift, thus setting a new standard for what counts as an acceptable birth within America. They are also worried that this continued selection will violate the fundamental moral structure of unconditional parental love.

Supporters of genetic selection put forth the idea that to bring a child into the world with a disease that is worse than death, such as Krabbe disease, would be to violate this child’s fundamental moral rights to a good life, if it was reasonably possible that the parents could have prevented the birth of a child with this disease.

Supporters continue this argument by stating that if it is wrong to bring a child into the world with a disease worse than death, what about a child who has a disease that allows for life, but one as fulfilling as a normal child. ex diabetes: the disease does not prevent one from having a happy life, however one could argue that they lead a more demanding life because of the disease. Several researchers both agree on this point citing, the moral responsibility of the parent, and their duty as a parent to provide the best possible life for their child, respectively.

Con
Expansion Needed

Pro
Selection for positive traits refers to the deliberate selection by either the clinician or the parents for a trait that has a positive genetic effect on the potential child's life, i.e. selecting for genes linked to increased athletic performance, not genes linked to a disease. Many moral philosophers and religious leaders worry about where this type of selection will lead humanity as a whole (citation needed). a study conducted in 1991 (citation needed) states that one per cent of those surveyed would abort for gender, 6 per cent would abort for susceptibility to Alzheimer, and 11 per cent would abort susceptibility to obesity.

These numbers indicate a growing trend that the populations' ideal of an acceptable healthy child is changing. Genetics researchers support that positive trait selection is a desirable outcome of the PGD technology, however it remains something that needs to be carefully studied to see what long term life effects PGD has on the resulting offspring.

In published literature researchers tend to agree; however they raise a point of concern, that the limitation of selection, for positive or negative traits, is in essence discrimination against other traits. moral philosophers argue that limiting our choice of selection is inherently discriminatory against the disease for which we select against. I.e. if we were to allow for the selection against diabetes, but not the selection of gender, it would be sending a message to those that live with the condition that their life is somehow less desirable.

Con
Expansion Needed

Interpretation:
There is another way to process all these ethical dilemmas as put forth by Colin Farrelly; his second-order social theory is an off shoot of deliberative democracy [9]. The framework that he puts forth is called the reasonable genetic intervention model, which sets forth conditions for determining when it is acceptable to interview in an individual's reproductive freedom and to what degree the interference is allowed. The two key conditions of this theory are that any restrictions placed upon reproductive freedom must be the pressing concern for the vast majority of a free population and that the means with which the reproductive freedom is limited be soundly connected to the issue at hand. This framework allows for the combination of the many points of view that have arisen around PGD and IVF.