MIT Technology Review interviewed a bioethicist at the Univ. of Pennsylvania who studies the ethical issues surrounding PGD.
Shaping Babies
The number of genetic tests that can be performed during in vitro fertilization is skyrocketing. What does this mean for human reproduction?
…doctors, clinicians, and their ethical-review boards are called on to make complex ethical decisions, such as if parents can choose the sex of their baby for nonmedical reasons or be allowed to screen embryos for diseases that they may never develop or that may only strike late in life.
I was paying attention to the bioethicist until I read “the God gene”… she said,
For example, lately we’ve seen a lot of literature about the God gene, the notion [that] there is genetic basis to faith or spirituality. If we ever get to the point where we can influence such complex traits, public outcry will be such that we might be able to regulate against certain uses.
Read the article here.