Green light for ‘designer babies’
31.07.05
By Amanda Cameron
An Auckland clinic has been given the go-ahead to begin screening embryos for parents wanting to give birth to babies without genetic disorders. The screening technology – pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) – will allow parents who are at risk of passing on certain inherited diseases to choose a “healthy” embryo to start a pregnancy.
The long-awaited move has been welcomed by parents keen to use the service, but opponents fear it is the start of a slippery slope towards “designer babies” and discrimination against those with disabilities.
Ethical guidelines approved in March prohibit parents from using PGD for social reasons, such as to choose a sex.
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Right to Life spokesman Ken Orr said the group strongly opposed PGD because it would be used to deny children with disabilities the right to be born.
“We see it as a search and destroy mission,” he said. “The message this community is giving to society is that, unless you’re well and healthy, you don’t have a right to be here.”
It is expected that between 15 and 30 people a year will seek PGD to screen for single gene disorders.
Parents Donna Slater, 37, and Steve Annan, 36, were devastated to learn they were both “carriers” of the defective gene responsible for the inherited disease. “We wouldn’t have married if we’d known,” says Mrs Slater.
To those who say she has no right to “play God”, Mrs Slater says: “Walk in my shoes for just one day and you’ll understand.”

Read the complete article via The New Zealand Herald here.