A series of groundbreaking studies has found that embryos created in fertility clinics contain far more genetic defects than previously thought, even if they are created from eggs donated by young, healthy women.
The discovery, which has alarmed fertility specialists, suggests that routine screening of embryos for defective DNA before they are implanted could dramatically reduce rates of miscarriage and multiple pregnancy.
Fertility clinics have always known that genetic damage builds up in the eggs of older women, and is carried through to their embryos, but eggs from younger women were assumed to be healthy and defect-free. The finding suggests that on average, 42% of eggs from all women have serious genetic defects that could prevent embryos being carried to term.
"This is a rewriting of the textbooks. These defects should not be present in such a high proportion of patients," said Peter Nagy, a fertility expert at the Atlanta-based clinic Reproductive Biology Associates. The researchers now believe that defective eggs are common among the general population, but are rejected early on by the body if they are fertilised. Drugs used to stimulate women’s ovaries to produce eggs in fertility clinics might add to the genetic damage, researchers said, a prospect that requires further investigation.
Via Wesley Smith, who notes in regard to the Washington Post piece blogged about below:
We are told by "transhumanists" and others that the future will be an individualist’s paradise, with all of us able to remake ourselves and our children into whatever form of life we choose. But the reverse seems true. As we claim to believe in diversity, in many ways we are actually well down the path to destroying it
From a reader, also in relation to that piece:
On a related note, there is a family in our parish who have a baby (with Down’s). There have been acquaintances of the mother that actually came up to her (with the baby, in tow), found out that the baby has Down’s and asked her in a rather surprised tone: “And you kept it?”
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