JUNIOR HIGH

2nd Place: Faith Wierenga

Grade 8

"Reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization (IVF) can assist couple to have babies. Fertility clinics now screen embryos to identify genetic anomalies to ensure that only "healthy" embryos are implanted. (The "surplus" or "defective" embryos are destroyed or used for research.) This is called pre implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), but many refer to it as creating "designer babies". Dr. Perry Phillips, and obstetrician and gynecologist, is one of the directors of IVF/Canada. He said: "This is the beginning of the end of genetic disease...That's the dream of medicine. It's our dream. This should have the same impact {that} antibiotics did to bacterial disease." What is wrong with this "dream"?"

This dream is wrong because it allows parents and/or doctors decide for the baby whether it has the "quality of life" to live or whether it would want to live with certain conditions. This has been done by using PGD to test for Down syndrome, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, and other conditions. A few clinics have also started using it to test for the tendency to develop early-onset Alzheimer's and some forms of cancer. The British newspaper Telegraph reported (May 7, 2007) that the Bridge Centre

Family Clinic in London was given permission to test embryos for squint, a disease of the eyes where one eye or both looks either down, up, or to the right or left permanently.

The clinic's director, Prof. Gedis Grudzinskas, said that if parents wanted he would test for hair colour because "hair colour can be a cause of bullying, which can lead to suicide." This dream is wrong because if any genetic defects are discovered in the embryo or other conditions are found that parents wouldn't like their child to have, the embryo will be discarded or used for research. This is effectively killing a human being. Sometimes the reasoning given for doing this is that parents wouldn't love children with disabilities. Although it does take money and time to care for disabled children/adults--money and time some people don't think worthwhile to spend--most parents think it is worth it. Even when handicapped children/individuals are a lot of work, their family still loves them very much and believe others can learn valuable lessons, such as compassion and caring, from knowing disabled children and people who have disabilities.

Even though a person has a crippling disease, it doesn't mean that he can't accomplish many things. An example of this is Stephen Hawking. Hawking was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's

disease) at age twenty-three. Although severely impaired, he has made many advances in science. Among these was the discovery of Hawking radiation, which deals with black holes in space.

This dream is wrong because it can result in PGD being used to discover the sex of an embryo, which can lead to serious consequences. Evidence of this can be seen in China, where many girls are aborted because of the one-child policy (a ban was enacted against the practice of discovering the sex of the baby in 2000, though it reportedly still goes on). Chinese parents wanted to find out the sex of the baby so they could abort the girls, as boys are more valued there. China now has a very unequal ratio of boys to girls: 130 boys to100 girls in rural areas. It is less pronounced in urban areas, being 117 boys to 100 girls. (The natural ratio is 105 boys to 100 girls.)

Society has been slowly de-sensitized to the killing of embryos, first by pre-natal testing which tested for conditions such as Down syndrome, and then by using PGD which can now test for many things, including hair colour.

This dream is wrong because it will get people used to the idea that it is 'normal'to end life if they think their own life or the life of another relative/friend is not of

value. In some countries it is acceptable to take the life of an elderly person if that person does not want to live. This shows with what low value life is generally viewed in those countries.

This dream is wrong because it is evolutionistic thinking. It is the idea that tha

everything will get better over time and that we should improve the human race by

getting rid of babies that will be born with a handicap or a disease. This idea is wrong because people are not going to improve, because of the effects of sin.

All of these uses for PGD–using it to test for disabilities, diseases, cosmetic conditions or the sex of an embryo--are wrong. This dream is wrong because it results in taking innocent human life, which is precious in God's sight, when the embryos are destroyed because of their defects. "It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish." -Mother Theresa