PGD screens in vitro embryos for a number of genetic conditions such as cystic fibrosis or sickle-cell disease. Such screening enables the implantation for gestation of only unaffectedembryos. If the use of the technique, however, follows the trajectory of previous reproductive interventions, PGD likely will become a more significant tool in the medical armory.
Tools have a way of finding uses.
PGD's cost and efficacy raise significant ethical questions in their own right. Other ethical considerations relevant to evaluating prospective use of the technique also loom large. For example, PGD has the potential to reduce the frequency of abortions. When PGD is used by those whose offspring have a higher risk of genetic disorders, it lowers the demand for abortion at later stages of gestation. Abortions motivated by genetic impairment occur comparatively later in the gestational cycle because current methods of genetic diagnosis are not done until about the end of the first trimester.