The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission

LIFE DIGEST: Screened baby born without cancer gene

By Tom Strode - Jan 13, 2009 - 1

The first British child who passed a screening before implantation for a genetic risk of breast cancer has been born, but nine of her siblings were destroyed in the process.

Also in this edition: Montana judge’s ruling leaves assisted suicide legal and Planned Parenthood cuts national staff by 20 percent

The baby girl was tested while she was an early embryo, conceived by in vitro fertilization, for the altered BRCA1 gene, which carries an 80 percent risk of producing breast cancer, British Broadcasting Co. News reported. The screening method, known as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), involves testing a cell from an embryo only a few days old.

Six of the other 10 embryos in this case tested positive for the gene, and three others had different abnormalities, according to the Daily Mail. All were destroyed. Two were implanted, and only one survived.

Three generations of women on the side of the baby girl’s father have been diagnosed with breast cancer, according to the BBC. Carrying the BRCA1 gene would not have guaranteed that cancer would occur, however.

Pro-life bioethics specialists expressed sadness over the report.

“Underlying all this is eugenics,” said Josephine Quintavalle of the British organization Comment on Reproductive Ethics, the BBC reported. “I hope 20 years down the line we will have eradicated breast cancer—not eradicated the carriers.”

Yuval Levin, director of the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center’s program on bioethics and American democracy, wrote in a weblog on National Review Online, “Curing the disease by killing the patient is hardly a step forward for medicine, and eliminating the unfit before they’re born so they won’t pass on their genes to future generations is just eugenics, pure and simple.”

The child’s parents have asked to remain anonymous.

Montana judge’s ruling leaves assisted suicide legal

A Montana district judge has refused to block enforcement of her decision to legalize physician-assisted suicide in the state.

Helena District Judge Dorothy McCarter rejected Jan. 7 a request to stay her opinion until the Montana Supreme Court rules on an appeal, the Missoulian reported. Her decision means assisted suicide is legal in the state until the high court acts.

In a Dec. 5 opinion, McCarter ruled the state constitution includes “rights of individual privacy and human dignity [that], taken together, encompass the right of a competent terminally [ill] patient to die with dignity.” State Attorney General Mike McGrath asked McCarter Dec. 10 to block enforcement of the decision until the Supreme Court responds to an appeal.

Since then, McGrath has become chief justice of the Montana Supreme Court and has said he will recuse himself from the case, according to the newspaper.

“Judges are becoming too arrogant for our good as a nation,” said bioethics specialist Wesley Smith on his weblog in response to McCarter’s latest ruling. “Culture-rending changes in law and morality should not be decided undemocratically by promoting a judge’s own ideology through wrenching and twisting constitutional terms to mean things that were not intended when they were enacted.

“Let’s hope the Supreme Court issues a stay so that this matter can be heard with the gravity and care it deserves.”

Two other states, Oregon and Washington, have legalized assisted suicide, but both did it through voter referendums.

Planned Parenthood cuts national staff by 20 percent

The country’s largest abortion provider has cut the staff of its national office by about 20 percent, according to a published report.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) took the action at least partly because of a loss of funds related to the Bernard Madoff scandal, Crain’s New York Business reported. Madoff was charged in December with fraud that cost investors $50 billion.

Part of PPFA’s money woes resulted from the closing of the Picower Foundation, which had investments with Madoff, according to a Jan. 9 report by Crain’s. The Florida institution provided major support for abortion rights advocacy.

The staff loss involved about 30 people, Crain’s reported. PPFA officials confirmed the staff cuts but refused to provide details, according to the report.

In early December, Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota cut 9½ positions, including that of its South Dakota director, according to the Associated Press.

PPFA-affiliated clinics performed nearly 290,000 abortions in 2006, the latest year for which there are statistics. That total is about one-fourth of the number of legal abortions performed annually in the United States. PPFA surpassed $1 billion in annual revenue for the first time in 2007, with more than $336 million of that total coming in grants and contracts from the government.

The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission works to protect the sanctity of human life. If you would like to learn more about this issue, additional resources are available here. If your church is interested in purchasing bulletin inserts or other materials on the sanctity of human life, please visit our online bookstore and erlc.com.

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