LEGAL VACUUM ALLOWS FERTILITY SCREENING TO FLOURISH IN CANADA

MONTREAL, April 7, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Fertility clinics across Canada are going ahead with human embryo screening to weed out genetic imperfections in the laboratory, even though the Canadian government says it plans “firm restrictions” on the practice, sometimes referred to under the euphemism “designer babies.”  Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is similar to standard prenatal testing, but with one difference—the testing for abnormalities is done before a woman is necessarily pregnant but is done in conjunction with in vitro fertilization. The embryos are screened and selected for transfer to the woman’s uterus. It is used to weed out some 100 genetic imperfections ranging from Down’s syndrome to Huntington’s disease, hemophilia and cystic fibrosis.  But Dr. Seang Lin Tan, medical director of the McGill Reproductive Centre at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, is proud to be Canada’s leader in the field and says opponents are extremists. “Most centres around the world are using PGD only to prevent diseases which are either fatal or are going to carry severe morbidity for the babies—and for which prenatal diagnosis is currently offered anyway.”  (with files from Pro-Life E News)