Prenatal eugenics

That's not what it's called, but that's basically what it is. They've fancied up the name a bit and given it the label PGD, or "Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis".

This month, Germany passed a law permitting PGD for embryos conceived in vitro, i.e. in the lab. It mandates testing is to be performed in authorized centers with consultation by a specialist. An interdisciplinary commission is to be established. and the mother's written consent is required. If the result of testing is "positive"... i.e. if the embryo is determined to be "defective"... the embryo will be destroyed.

Previously, PGD was prohibited in Germany as a violation of the Embryo Protection Act. In many nations, including the U.K., PGD is permitted under the law but is regulated by the state. Theoretically, PGD is used to screen for genetic disorders and to increase the chance of successful pregnancy. Increasingly, however, it is used to select the sex of the embryo to be implanted. In other cases, it has been used to screen for relatively minor disabilities. And of course, there is concern among many that PGD can be used for "social selection"... to weed out "undesirables".

For those of us who've lived through or learned about the Holocaust, this last is of special concern. The eugenics program in Hitler's Germany was kicked off by the 1933 Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring. People could be forcibly sterilized if they had any of the following: congenital mental deficiency, shizophrenia, manic-depression, hereditary epilepsy, hereditary St. Vitus’ Dance (Huntington’s Chorea), hereditary blindness, hereditary deafness, serious hereditary physical deformity, or chronic alcoholism.

We Americans can't sneer from a pinnacle of moral superiority. In just one state - North Carolina - 7600 people were forcibly sterilized between 1929 and 1975. According to this article, "Thirty-three states adopted eugenics programs in the early 1900s out of a belief that humanity could evolve and society be improved by breeding out undesirable characteristics." In some instances, these forced sterilizations were rationalized as a means of protecting potential offspring of mentally disabled parents.

Uh... pardon me for mentioning the obvious... but only the living need to be protected. And preventing birth - whether by PGD or forced sterilization - doesn't lead to life.

Even today, Dr. Richard Dawkins of Oxford had been quoted as saying, "…if you can breed cattle for milk yield, horses for running speed, and dogs for herding skill, why on Earth should it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability?".

With all due respect, Dr. Dawkins, I don't liken humans to cattle, horses, or dogs, and I don't care for for the suggestion that women be subject to some sort of a breeding program.

We can try to fancy up the way we describe PGD by saying we are selecting healthy embryos. But in the long run, we have to acknowledge that by doing so, we're making the decision that some embryos are too defective to live.

And who has given us the wisdom and foresight to make such a decision, or the right to do so? As the German bishops remind us in their prepared statement, "Every human being is unique as a person and the bearer of a dignity that is not disposable, notwithstanding his level of development, his actual capacities, his talents, his strong and weak points or his social position, and this in all the phases of his existence."

Read this Zenit article or this Wikipedia article for more information. Facing History and Ourselves is another resource to check out.