The United Kingdom is taking another step in the wrong direction – moving to make it illegal to implant embryos which are abnormal. This brings me to one of my many many complaints about IVF technology. IVF technology necessarily assumes that grading, testing, and quality controls be used in the manufacturing of human life. And now in the UK, a new draft bill from the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) states:
“Persons or embryos that are known to have a gene, chromosome or mitochondrion abnormality involving a significant risk that a person with the abnormality will have or develop –
(a) a serious physical or mental disability,
(b) a serious illness, or
(c) any other serious medical condition, must not be preferred to those that are not known to have such an abnormality’.”
We must not prefer the abnormal over the normal. WOW! And who gets to decide who is normal or abnormal? And what will be the definition of abnormal? Science is God!
Author Profile
- Jennifer Lahl, MA, BSN, RN, is founder and president of The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network. Lahl couples her 25 years of experience as a pediatric critical care nurse, a hospital administrator, and a senior-level nursing manager with a deep passion to speak for those who have no voice. Lahl’s writings have appeared in various publications including Cambridge University Press, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News, and the American Journal of Bioethics. As a field expert, she is routinely interviewed on radio and television including ABC, CBS, PBS, and NPR. She is also called upon to speak alongside lawmakers and members of the scientific community, even being invited to speak to members of the European Parliament in Brussels to address issues of egg trafficking; she has three times addressed the United Nations during the Commission on the Status of Women on egg and womb trafficking.
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