And, most recently, we have parenthood in defiance of metaphysics-through the use of frozen eggs and postmortem extraction, dead people are becoming parents. On 17 March, in California, a baby girl was bom after sperm had been extracted from her dead father. In the US we can, and do, establish elaborate specifications for people willing to donate their eggs or sperm. Recently, advertisements for an egg donor were published in several American college newspapers. An obvious start is that they become mere commodities.
Parents buy tennis lessons for their children to increase their skills.
The technique has since been developed to detect a range of genetic defects. One or two cells are removed from an embryo at the eight-cell stage, amplified and then biopsied. Only embryos that are found to be healthy are then implanted in the uterus. Clearly, PGD creates an ethical problem for anyone who believes that life begins at conception. But even people who don't share this view may be troubled by, say, PGD for conditions that take many years to show up.