Imagine if you could choose what your brother or sister would look like. Imagine if you could choose your child's eye colour, hair colour, IQ level and even his interests. Imagine a world where everyone is perfect health-wise and IQ-wise.
This all seems like a scene from a science fiction movie right? Well, all this might be possible in the near future with the advancement of Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis or PGD. PGD is a procedure where the embryo is genetically tested to be free of disease and then implanted in the mother using invitro fertilization (IVF).
Parents can now choose to have the ultimate child, one who excels in both studies and sports. We all got a glimpse of PGD in the 1997 movie Gattaca where genetic engineering and IVF allowed for the engineering of children, including factors such as gender, intelligence, lifespan and even eliminating various hereditary and genetic diseases.
However, PGD does not only exist in science fiction movies. In fact, PGD is continuing to develop into an exciting technology with the incredible potential to increase women's chances of not just a healthy pregnancy but a healthy child as well.
PGD was first made famous by Dr. Jeffrey Nisker, from the University of Ontario. He pioneered PGD and was the first man in Canada to offer such a revolutionary procedure of manually engineering embryos. He has since stopped and closed his programme down due to overwhelming requests from all over Canada to access PGD, not to avoid severe genetic conditions but for gender selection, primarily to avoid having a daughter.
It was against his concern and belief that all children should be cherished, regardless of their gender. Among the cases in which PGD was performed, was when a couple needed the procedure to have a baby with the right genetic make-up to save their son's life. Leanne and Stephen needed the procedure to save their first-born, BJ, who suffers from a rare genetic disorder, Hyper IGM. BJ is missing a vital part of his immune system and survives only with the aid of regular blood transfusions.
The child needs to be free of the disorder and of the same sex as BJ, then only can they be assured that the tissue can be transplanted from the newborn to BJ. The procedure was long and tedious with Leanne and Stephen going through a roller coaster of emotions as the eggs are extracted and fertilized and then sent for testing.
After a few rounds of misses, Leanne and Stephen made a hit and the embryo was transplanted in Leanne. Soon, their designer baby will arrive, bringing help and hope to his older brother and parents! PGD has, however, raised some ethical concerns from society, particularly regarding its potential and who should decide how to use this new found revolutionary technology.
The procedure allows for parents to determine the gender of the embryo, and can thus be used to select the embryo of one gender in preference to the other in the context of 'family balancing'.
Society has also raised the questions of doctors and scientist 'playing God', that interfering with the natural form of conception may have major implications on our planet in the future.
Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Health