Bioethicist: Not just autistic at risk if sex screening approved
- Jun 29, 2006
WASHINGTON (BP)—All human life is in jeopardy if regulators approve a British hospital’s plan to destroy male human embryos from families with a history of autism, a Southern Baptist bioethicist says.
Researchers at University College Hospital in London have requested permission from a government regulatory agency to screen for the sex of embryos in couples with a family history of autism, according to the Daily Mail, a British online newspaper. While there is no trustworthy test for autism, the screening of embryos produced through in vitro fertilization would enable male embryos to be disposed of and female embryos to be implanted. Males are four times more likely to have autism than females, according to the Autism Society of America, so the implantation of only female embryos would cut down significantly on the number of autistic children.
“If unborn children are being eliminated for a genetic disposition to autism, no one is safe,” said C. Ben Mitchell, associate professor of bioethics at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in suburban Chicago, Ill., and a consultant for the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
“If genetic diagnosis for autism had been available 30 to 50 years ago, Silicon Valley might be empty,” he said, adding it is believed many of “those who work in the computer software industry have a mild form of autism known as Asperger’s syndrome. Does anyone think [Microsoft founder] Bill Gates should have been eliminated as an embryo?”
Mitchell said, “The point is that we cannot make these judgments about who should live and who should die. Today autism, tomorrow intelligence below 70 I.Q., the next day male pattern baldness. When will the madness stop?”
A representative of the British Council of Disabled People also warned about such a trend.
“Screening out autism would breed a fear that anyone who is different in any way will not be accepted,” Simone Aspis said, according to the Daily Mail. “It would create a society where only perfection is valued.”
Autism is a developmental disorder that usually is manifested in a child’s first three years. The brain functions abnormally, affecting a person’s ability to communicate and relate socially. A single cause for autism, which has a wide range of severity, has yet to be proven.
It is estimated as many as 1.5 million Americans have autism. With a growth rate of 10 to 17 percent each year, autism may be found in four million people in the United States in a decade, the Autism Society of America reported.
The number of British children diagnosed with autism has nearly doubled in the last seven years, according to the Telegraph, another British newspaper.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority will make a decision on the London hospital’s application to do sex testing on IVF embryos from couples with an autistic history. If given the go-ahead, researchers at University College Hospital will test embryos at a few days of age to determine their sex before implanting only females, the Daily Mail reported.
“Normally we would not consider this unless there were at least two boys affected in the immediate family,” said the hospital’s Joy Delhanty, according to the Daily Mail.
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