A Slippery Slope Gets More Slippery

An article in CNN.com today lauds the birth of a 'cancer-free' baby in London. The baby hasn't been given an in-vitro cocktail of super-vaccines nor is there a guarantee that the child won't be inflicted by certain forms of cancer later in life. In this case, the baby, a female, was screened as an embryo in a lab days after conception to check for the BRCA-1 gene, linked to breast and ovarian cancer.

Obviously, it's great that this baby is BRCA-1-free, as there's no apparent advantage to having this gene. What is disconcerting is what the course of action would have been taken if the BRCA-1 was indeed found to be present. Many parents may very well bringing the baby to term, recognizing that 20 to 50% of those with the gene never actually develop breast or ovarian cancer. Some parents might rashly decide to abort the child. What a tragedy it would be if people such as Shirley Temple, Sheryl Crow, Dorthy Hamill, Sandra Day O'Connor and Julia Child (all who lived with breast cancer) never were given a chance to live their lives and make their mark upon society because of a test which led to their eradication.

To be clear, I don't think the tests themselves are unethical, per se. What concerns me is what parents, humans who are prone to sin and poor judgment, will do with the results. When Sarah was pregnant with our first child Daniel, the obstetrician told us about a standard serum test which we could take which would test for Down Syndrome. We asked, "Why should we take this test?" and the obstetrician told us (in a way which I felt was gracious and thoughtful at the time) that parents may decide whether they want to take the baby to term or to end the pregnancy. Sarah and I decided to have the test, with the rationale that even though abortion not an option for us, we could make emotional and logistical preparations for a special-needs child sooner than later if need be. As it happened, Daniel didn't have Down Syndrome but he does have an odd habit of pulling his shirt up when he pees.

The other concern that I have is how this will become a slippery slope for parents who want a baby to specification and will terminate the pregnancy if their baby isn't "made to order" as if he or she was an omelette in a Denny's. If and when a test becomes available to see if a child will have asthma, will parents who dream of an NBA superstar abort the child? Before soon, we'll have testing of later-term unborn children who will be aborted simply because they don't happen to be the gender of choice for the expecting parents. Well, sadly, that's already old news.