Making Babies

Designed to provide stem cells for their siblings

In a growing practice that troubles some ethicists, a Chicago laboratory helped create five healthy babies to serve as stem-cell donors for their ailing brothers and sisters.

The made-to-order infants, from different families, were screened when they were embryos to make sure they would be compatible donors. Their siblings suffered from leukemia or a rare, potentially lethal anemia.

This is the first time embryo tissue-typing has been done for common disorders like leukemia that are not inherited. The results suggest that more children than previously thought could benefit from the technology, said Dr. Anver Kuliev, a Chicago doctor who participated in the research.

Comments

[Kathleen]

I sometimes shudder to think how this type of technology is going to have unintended consequences that we can't yet think of. Although not a scientific advance, look at the consequences of the sexual revolution and birth control.... rampant abortion, AIDS, divorce, etc. Every time we stray from the culture of life there are horrible consequences. I can't imagine what will come down the pike because of this.

[bc]

It's not just aborting the ones that don't match.

Sibling rivalry, in its more intense manifestations, is hard enough psychologically. To be created as an "it," a medical-supply machine for a sick brother or sister already soaking up parents' attention, is a developmental nightmare. The reason the law permits parents to make medical decisions for a child is its assumptions that they have his best interests at heart. In the case of this "second" one, by definition they don't.

This makes me think of God and humans and the necessary gift of free will. To give generously to our fellow man is beautiful. To be forced to "give" or to "love" in this invasive way sets up a hideous and toxic family agenda. A particularly subtle child abuse.

I pray for these "designed" children, that they will find God's love to heal the results of this horrible family structure.

[Henry Dieterich]

I heard this story on NPR last night, presented in the most matter-of-fact manner. Within my memory the notion of creating children in the laboratory for the sake of their spare parts would have been found only in the most horrific visions of the future depicted in science fiction. But now it is supposed to represent compassion. The world's virtues are more dangerous than its vices.

[Cheryl]

You said it well, Henry. Every few weeks, it seems, I read or hear a matter-of-fact report about "advances" in fetal stem cell research, "therapeutic" cloning, etc. that make my skin crawl. Truly, if something CAN be done (regardless of whether it should be) SOMEONE will find a way to do it.

What is it they say about the banality of evil? And this is the world my kids are growing up in...

[Puzzled]

Are they killing these children, or do they get to live?

Why can they not use autosomal stem cells from the sick child? There is even less risk of rejection with that than with stem cells from close relatives.

[Pro-life liberal]

We are growing human beings for parts.
How long till we find a way to sell them for scrap?

I tremble for my society.

[Pro-life Liberal]

p.s.
Is there any question, that had the technology developed more rapidly, and our society progressed a bit less so, that we would harvest tissue from the living human beings we could legally own? from our slaves?

I am an organ donor.
I don't mean I have a little writing on my license indicating my future willingness, I mean I gave a stranger one of my kidneys a couple years ago.
The screening they do for "altruistic" donors is pretty extensive (to make sure they are not either crazy, or illegally selling their organs, etc.,) but the doctor who did my psychological evaluation told me that the process is, if anything, more rigorous for a related donor.
It is, it seems, horribly common that a reluctant blood relative is coerced by the family into donating marrow (very painful,) kidneys, etc.
I guess these doctors don't worry about little children being put through painful medical procedures -- it's not like they are "persons" with rights of their own, right? I mean, they weren't a few months earlier. were they? Their parents could have had them killed and just harvested all the parts they wanted, right?
Whe difference does a few weeks one side or the other of birth make?
Hell, until they can talk, why worry about what they want, or what's right for them?
They're just chattel.

Calling Dr. Peter Singer....

[Justin Katz]

Kathleen,

Here's one next-step: just change the recipient from a sibling to a parent.

[Liam]

What is going unsaid is how, in the public discussion (as it were) of cloning, "reproductive" cloning is viewed as worse than "therapeutic" cloning.

Both are horrors. But therapeutic cloning of a new person is even worse because that person is only being used to serve another, and not even given his or her innate right to life.