As our technical abilities progress, citizens will have to cope with the ethical implications of designing babies, and governments will have to define a regulatory course. As always, our judgments should be based on the facts and on our social beliefs. A U.S. couple with a daughter suffering from a rare form of anemia gave birth to a healthy son, conceived in a lab and selected when still an embryo because he did not have the disease. They decided to have the child at least partly because his tissues could help treat his sister. This case marks the first time treatment for another person been a consideration in embryo selection.
Early reports indicate the therapy has been successful .
Sex selection is banned in Britain, and the government body in charge of regulating reproductive technology has refused to make an exception. They are now suing under an EU human rights law recently passed in the UK . We do not need a genome map to confront ethical dilemmas brought on by our knowledge of genetics. Great Britain is facing precisely that question.