I’m sure many of you have seen, “My Sister’s Keeper” but if not I’ll catch you up on the basic plot of the movie. The girl in the family had a type of cancer where she needed bone marrow and no one in her family was a match (mom, dad, and brother, Jesse), so the doctor suggested that the couple have another baby, and he could make it where she would be the perfect bone marrow match for her sister. Fast forward a few years later and the movie takes on a hollywood plot where the “savior sibling” sues her parents for the rights to her own body because she doesn’t want to do it anymore. I personally loved this movie, but thought that there is no way this plot could be true. Do people really have a child and mutate it’s genes so that they can be a medical match for his/her sick brother or sister? The answer to that is yes.
There is a big ethical debate over whether PGD is the right thing to do when having a child because you are essentially, “playing God,” but I won’t get in to that here, we’re just gonna take a glimpse at the science behind the whole process.
PGD stands for “Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis.” That is when you have kid using IVF, instead of the natural way and doctors look at the embryos and study the genetics in them before plantation into the uterus. The doctors stick a needle in the woman’s vagina to retrieve the egg from the ovary and then fertilize it with the male sperm. After 3 days they do a biopsy of the embryo and then choose the best ones to implant into the mom to be’s uterus. (Penn Medicine, 2014).
PGD is not just used to have “savior siblings,” a lot of times it is used when a couple doesn’t want to pass on a gene that they carry. If a woman has the BRCA1 gene she can use PGD so that she won’t pass that gene on to her unborn child. I feel that PGD can kind of be like the Texas Sharp Shooter scenario, the doctors do all these tests on the embryos looking for anything abnormality with, and I’m sure that they find at least one thing wrong in at least on of the embryo’s. I know this isn’t quite to that extent but it might help i you look at it that way to see the plus sides of PGD.
Another thing that PGD can do, that is extremely controversial is give the option of choosing what gender child you would like to have. You can use PGD for sex selection if there is a risk you are going to pass on a gene that only affects one gender if they get it. For this to happen, you go through the same procedure as above, but the doctors then exam which chromosomes are making up a male embryo and which ones are making up a female embryo. 1-3 embryos of the choice sex are then implanted into the uterus. There are some risks to this, the embryos can be damaged in the process, there may only be the unwanted sex’s embryo’s and this procedure is not 100% effective. This here defeats the purpose of natural selection because you are choosing what sex you want. It may sound absurd but it helps save the lives of countless children who could be born with terrible diseases everyday. (PGD, 2014).
A lot of woman that use PGD are of advanced maternal age (over 35), have had a series of miscarriages, and have had previous implantation failures. PGD has only been around since the 1990’s so it is relatively new, and all of the embryo’s that go unused are sometimes donated to science.
In a case study of PGD, there was a family who had a daughter who suffered from, Fanconi anemia (her body couldn’t produce enough red blood cells), and the parents had another child, a son who helped save his older sister’s life. Jack and Lisa Nash decided to go through with IVF and have a child who would not carry the gene of Fanconi anemia and who also was a HLA (Human Leukocyte Antigen) gene match for his sister Molly. Baby Adam was born in August of 2000 and the doctors’ saved his cord blood from the placenta and then started Molly on chemotherapy to destroy her bone marrow so they she could get a transfusion of her brother’s cord blood a few months later. Molly now is Fanconi Anemia free, thanks to her younger brother. (Rivard, 2013). If it wasn’t for Adam, Molly most likely would have been dead and The Nash;s would be childless. Just because Adam was born with a purpose, does not make him any less loved. This procedure is becoming more and more popular in the world today and I think in the future we will be hearing a lot more about it as it continues to marvel our minds at it’s scientific wonder.
Work Cited
http://www.nature.com/scitable/forums/genetics-generation/case-study-in-savior-siblings-104229158
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/designer-babies-preimplantation-genetic-diagnosis-pgd/
http://www.pgdscience.com/pgdscience-genetic-testing-who-needs-pgd.htmlp
http://www.hfea.gov.uk/preimplantation-genetic-diagnosis.html#10
I agree Rebecca I do think that this will become popular as time continues. I also feel that the movie went a little for far and exaggerated what this process really is, but that’s Hollywood. Baby Adam was wanted and not to just save his sister’s life. The family always wanted to expand but was worried that since their daughter had the anemia disorder the next baby would get it too. I really enjoyed the article that you posted and totally agree that one day this will be a common procedure that doctors recommend to parents to save lives.
I can completely understand why this topic would be controversial. I always thought genetic mutations was a little too far for science, but when it is used to save another life, I think that definitely changes things. If it is to help a family and keep a person alive, why not try it? I think it is amazing that this opportunity is available for families and patients who really need it. In the case you described in your post, the Nash family was extremely lucky and wound up with two children instead of none at all. And it’s not as if Adam is simply there for the purpose of saving his sister and is ignored the rest of the time; he is equally as loved by his parents, and was able to give them a better life by restoring their family. Although this subject is controversial for now, I think that soon it will be viewed as just another method that we use to save lives. This article (http://www.nimr.mrc.ac.uk/mill-hill-essays/are-saviour-siblings-a-humane-and-proper-use-of-reproductive-technology) explains some of the pros and cons of the savior siblings debate. Definitely a great topic to think about, because I feel that it will become more popular in the future.