Genetic testing of human embryos
via: The New York Times
The New York Times has an interesting article on testing human embryos for two different types of hereditary cancers. From what I understood of the article, they take an embryo in a very early stage (8 cells), remove one of the cells and test it’s DNA for the particular gene(s) that causes the cancer. Currently they are testing for a form of breast cancer and a form of colon cancer. The subjects of the article have a history of the colon cancer in the husband’s mother’s family that has killed many of his mother’s siblings. The couple learned that this gene had a 50% chance of showing up in their child, so they decided to shell out the $15,000 to have the genetic testing done.
I know this testing will not sit well with many people, especially religious types, and that is fine. My personal opinion is that we (humans) have been given the gift of infinite capability and choosing not to utilize this gift is the biggest sin we could ever commit.
