A New York Times story today reports on a procedure to insure that an in vitro fertilized embryo does not carry a known defective gene of either parent. Embryos are culled, the defective ones tossed, and a healthy one implanted. I really have no comment on that. It’s all to the good if a baby is saved from having a life-threatening or debilitating disease later in life. The culling is part of Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis–PGD. It is, of course, only available only to people rich enough to shell out tens of thousands of dollars. So, now the rich get not only richer but healthier too. Nothing new there. The irony is that the rich would be more able to take care of a diseased or handicapped child than the poor citizens of our health-insurance-for-some land.
