HIGH SCHOOL

3rd Place: Laura Antonio,

Grade 11

It is all over the news; it is in all of the papers. The parents of a healthy ten-year old girl killed their daughter when they found out that she carried a gene that made her more susceptible to cancer. People were in an uproar when they heard what was done. They said to themselves, "Why would her parents do such a thing? She was a healthy, happy girl. She wasn't sick; she was just more prone to getting cancer than most people, that's all. Were her rights not considered? Her parents shouldn't be allowed to get away with this."

If this was a real situation then the parents would not be allowed to get away with it, they would be charged with murder. Why? Because they violated their daughter's right to life. She was protected by law; the law gave her rights, equal to everyone else's. It was not up to her parents to decide that these rights did not apply to their daughter.

Sadly this type of thing is happening more and more, though not exactly in the way just described. Instead, it is happening to microscopic babies of in vitro fertilization. Parents, wanting a healthy baby, can have their embryos screened, in a process called preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), that identifies genetic anomalies.

According to Dr. Perry Phillips "the dream of medicine" is to bring an end to genetic disease. PGD is used to do this. Originally PGD was only supposed to be used to detect lethal diseases. But it is not just being used for this purpose, its use has been extended to also screen for conditions such as Down syndrome, autism, susceptibility to illnesses such as cancer, club foot, cleft pallet, and physical appearances. The curing of these "diseases" is not being treated like other diseases. Instead of the disease being treated, the person with the 'disease' is just done away with... killed. A person with a sore throat is given antibiotics to kill the bacteria causing the sore throat. The person gets better and the bacteria are killed. PGD is not like that type of treatment, "It is not about taking an embryo and curing it, but about diagnosing and then throwing away...." (Josephine Quintavalle)

Diagnosing genetic abnormalities and killing embryos because of them, is the same thing that Hitler did when creating a "pure race." To him, people who were mentally or physically handicapped were not considered "pure." So, he killed them. Since Hitler was killing people he did not like, he was considered an atrocious man, someone who needed to be stopped. That was why so many good men and women died, to stop him. Then, just over sixty years later, the same thing is being done again. But there are no soldiers rushing off to put a stop to it this time. Why? Is it because those eliminated are only a few cells in size and show potential of being physically or mentally handicapped, or being more susceptible to a lethal disease? In the past the people lived among society and their numbers were missed when they were killed. Is that the difference? Is it size, age, and whether or not the person lived among society that makes their elimination bad or not? The answer is YES! Some parents today do not want to be burdened with a "diseased" baby, so they use PGD to make sure that their baby is healthy and if it is not, they will snuff out its life by refusing it. The baby is not given the choice if it wants to live with its condition or not. That baby would most likely want to live; it is human nature, to preserve your own life in whatever way possible. If a person had a lethal disease, which can now be detected using PGD, was asked if their life was of value the answer for most would be yes, their life is of value, they are happy with the chance that they got, they are happy with what life gave them, and what they were able to give to others. Lou Gehrig, a famous U.S. baseball player, died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 1941 at the age of 37. It was a cruel disease, degeneration the motor neurons while the mind stayed intact, but he was not sorry that he had lived. On his retirement he said, "I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for." Gehrig had a lethal disease and died young, but he wasn't sorry that he had lived. What if PGD had been available and had been able to diagnose Gehrig. Would it have been the "dream of medicine" to have taken from society someone who gave so much to so many people? No, of course it would not be, but when embryos are killed because they are "diseased" society is robbed of the good they could have given.

 Subsection 1 of the fifteenth section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states, "Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability." Since every individual is equal before the law an embryo (who can't be anything but human as it comes from human parents), even one with a lethal disease or a disability, should be given the same rights as everyone else. According to every person's rights, Dr. Phillips' dream goes against national law. In addition, 'Life is the gift of God and thus is only to be taken by God" (St. Thomas Aquinas) and since "Every person has a right to life, even the imperfect ones." (Dave Stevens) Then a dream that goes against the will of God and against every human's rights is not a dream worthy of being fulfilled, it is a nightmare.