LIFE DIGEST: Embryos with Alzheimer’s gene targeted
- Oct 8, 2007 - comment
A British couple has decided to screen their embryos, and potentially destroy at least some of them, to prevent a child from being born with a disease that may not affect him for decades.
A British government agency has licensed a fertility clinic to conduct in vitro fertilization and to test the resulting embryos of Charl and Danielle de Beer to determine if any have inherited a gene that can result in early onset Alzheimer’s disease, according to The Telegraph. The form of dementia can impact a person as early as 35 years of age.
The Bridge Centre will implant only embryos that are not shown to be carrying the gene that leads to the disease. As a result, embryos who fail the screening will be destroyed. The method, however, has a 25 percent chance of eliminating embryos that actually do not have the genetic defect, The Telegraph reported.
Charl de Beer’s mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at the age of 49 and died 15 years later, according to the British newspaper. His grandmother and two uncles also died from the disease.
Alan Thornhill, the Bridge Centre’s scientific director, said the early onset of the disease can mean an Alzheimer’s patient “has only half a life worth living,” The Telegraph reported.
A member of the President’s Council on Bioethics, however, said the selection of some embryos over others demonstrates parents do not have the right perspective on children.
This is “the way we treat products that we produce rather than gifts that we receive,” said Gilbert Meilaender, a Christian ethics professor at Valparaiso (Ind.) University, and it “strikes quite directly at our belief in the equality of human lives.”
The fact such screening would occur for a disease that would not materialize for about 40 years is particularly disconcerting, he said, according to a Sept. 28 article on World Magazine’s webzine.
If parents insist on a “perfect child or no child at all,” they should consider whether they are prepared to provide “the kind of love and acceptance that parents are supposed to give,” Meilaender said.
Planned Parenthood clinic opens after all
Planned Parenthood has received a permit to open an Aurora, Ill., clinic despite a loss in court less than two weeks before.
The city of Aurora issued the permit Oct. 1 after a county state’s attorney and two independent lawyers decided no state laws or city ordinances were broken in the application process, Mayor Tom Weisner said, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The clinic is an affiliate of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the leading abortion provider in the United States. More than 260,000 abortions were performed at PPFA clinics in the most recent year for which statistics are available.
On Sept. 20, Federal Judge Charles Norgle denied Planned Parenthood’s request for an emergency order to force the city to allow the organization to occupy the 22,000-square-foot clinic, which would make it one of PPFA’s largest centers.
The city had been seeking to determine if Planned Parenthood was guilty of fraud in applying for building permits under a different name. Gemini, Planned Parenthood’s subsidiary, said on its application it was “unknown” who the tenant would be, according to the Tribune. During a city council hearing, the newspaper reported, a Gemini spokesman said when asked about the building’s occupant: “We’re in negotiations with a tenant; we do not currently have one but we still want to move ahead.”
Planned Parenthood is not faring as well in Michigan, however. Revisions in how the state government allocates funds to such centers has resulted in the organization’s announcement it has closed, or will close, five affiliates in western Michigan, The Grand Rapids Press reported.
Planned Parenthood shut down centers in Hart and White Cloud Oct. 1, with plans to close affiliates in Grand Rapids, Mount Pleasant and Muskegon before the end of the year, according to The Press.
The change in the funding formula resulted in a loss of $700,000 to Planned Parenthood, the newspaper reported.
Clinton would lift ban on stem cell funds
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D.-N.Y., made it clear Oct. 4 she would repeal President Bush’s ban on federal funds for embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) that destroys embryos if she is elected to the country’s top office.
The leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination said Bush’s policy is a “ban on hope,” the Associated Press reported.
“The Bush administration has declared war on science,” she told the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, according to AP. “When I am president, scientific integrity will not be the exception; it will be the rule.”
Bush issued in 2001 an order that prohibits federal grants for destructive ESCR. His rule permits funds for research on embryonic stem cell lines already in existence at the time of the announcement of the policy.
In announcing a veto in June of a bill that would have undermined his policy, the president said scientific experiments should not overrule ethics.
“If this legislation became law, it would compel American taxpayers for the first time in our history to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos,” Bush said. “I made it clear to Congress and to the American people that I will not allow our nation to cross this moral line.”
Stem cells are the body’s master cells that can develop into tissues and other cells, providing hope for the treatment of numerous afflictions. The extraction of stem cells from embryos destroys the tiny human beings, however. Embryonic research also has yet to treat any diseases in human beings and has been plagued by the development of tumors in lab animals.
Unlike research using embryos, extracting stem cells from non-embryonic sources – such as umbilical cord blood, placentas, fat and bone marrow – has nearly universal support. Such research has produced treatments for at least 73 ailments, according to Do No Harm, a coalition promoting ethics in research. These include spinal cord injuries, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis and sickle cell anemia.
The Southern Baptist Convention approved resolutions in 1999 and 2005 opposing stem cell research that destroys embryos, and the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission has been outspoken in its disapproval of reversing Bush’s policy.
Further Learning
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