Walter Glannon: Genes, Embryos, and Future People
Bioethics, 02699702, Jul98, Vol. 12, Issue 3

ABSTRACT: Testing embryonic cells for genetic abnormalities gives us the capacity to predict whether and to what extent people will exist with disease and disability. Moreover, the freezing of embryos for long periods of time enables us to alter the length of a normal human lifespan. After highlighting the shortcomings of somatic-cell gene therapy and germ-line genetic alteration, I argue that the testing and selective termination of genetically defective embryos is the only medically and morally defensible way to prevent the existence of people with severe disability, pain and suffering that make their lives not worth living for them on the whole. In addition, I consider the possible harmful effects on children born from frozen embryos after the deaths of their biological parents, or when their parents are at an advanced age.
I also explore whether embryos have moral status and whether the prospects for disease-preventing genetic alteration can justify long-term cryopreservation of embryos.

INTRODUCTION

Recent advances in reproductive biotechnology have given us the ability to intervene in the process of human biological development from embryos to people. One type of intervention is the testing of embryos for genetic defects that cause disease, which enables us to choose between allowing these embryos to result in disabled people or selectively terminating their further development. Alternatively, in the foreseeable future it may become possible to prevent disease by correcting a mutation in embryonic cells or by inserting a normal gene into these cells. It even may become possible to manipulate genes in such a way as to enhance people's normal cognitive and physical functioning. Still another form of intervention in the development of a