Savior Siblings Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Savior Siblings - Essay Example This may involve: pursuing parenthood through adoption and foregoing conceiving children who have blood ties, applying a collaborative reproductive procedure e.g. surrogacy or donation of an egg, embryo or sperm with a parent who is free of the genetic illness being the child's genetic parent, following conception women may undertake pre natal diagnosis i.e. PND though the procedure involved has an inherent risk and also raises a challenge in the decision as to whether to terminate the a pregnancy of a fetus which is affected. PND is recognized and a number of women have continually ended pregnancies in their effort to conceive a child with no genetic illness under debate. PGD/embryo screening has the merit that it informs a woman whether her baby is affected or not with the genetic problem In question or under test during her initial stages of her pregnancy; this enables the said woman to make an informed decision as to whether to terminate or continue with the pregnancy. As such, owing to the ethical, psychological and physical reasons, PGD option is more preferred to PND/fetal screening. The initial PGD application was reported in 1989 and so far it is applied as detect quite a big number of a genetic conditions e.g. determining embryo's sex ( this have medical relevance for sex-related conditions such as hemophilia and Duchene's muscular dystrophy), identification of the single gene conditions such as spinal muscular atrophy, thalassaemia and cystic fibrosis. Human Leucocytes Antigen tissue typing together with PGD may make it certain the fact that an embryo is not affected by a severe genetic condition/s and also guarantee that the said child possibly will be a tissue-matched donor for an existing affected sibling requiring stem cell transplant. The embryo is not prone to extra risk as the equivalent biopsy carried out for PGD may be applied to check for tissue typing. Donating cord blood stem cell is not invasive, thus postnatal intervention concerning the "savior sibling" is not possible, and hence, no physical harm risk is incurred. I agree with the authority's decision of rejecting the request by the Whitaker family on the basis that it was not right to create a human life with the express intent of saving another life. There are various ethical arguments in opposition to the notion of 'saviour siblings' i.e. wrongful instrumentalization of the child, welfare of the child and slippery slope. Wrongful Instrumentalization of the Child Wrongful instrumentalization of the child is founded on the grounds that any child should be sought for his/her own sake. The concept of wrongful instrumentalization holds both the notion of choosing the character of a child and conceiving him or her so as to provide the ends of another child. The 'savior siblings' idea renders its application as a tool even though for superior ends. In case of conceivement of a savior sibling, he/she should be taken care of as a human being with his/her personal rights. It can not be accepted where the single reason for conceiving a child as a "savior sibling" is to make available a supply of stem cells that will be utilized to take care of a child on hand ( Immanuel kant pp) Welfare of the Child Welfare of the child