Saturday 31 October, 10.30am until 12.00pm, Lecture Theatre 1
Developments in pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and screening (PGD and PGS) allow couples to avoid having children with life-threatening conditions, but they also imply the possibility that some specific forms of disability will be ‘screened out’, raising the prospect of a generation of ‘designer babies’. Many religious groups rail against scientists ‘playing God’. While some disability campaigners fear that the use of PGD and PGS will devalue people born with disabilities, disabled people could potentially use ARTs to select a child that shares their physical impairment: in one high-profile case a deaf couple challenged the assumption that an embryo likely to be deaf should be rejected. Current UK law means ‘normal’ embryos must always be preferred, but is this appropriate given that the state does not prevent two deaf people from becoming parents together ordinarily?
Where does science fact meet science fiction and how can we distinguish between the two outside of the lab? How far should the decisions of HFEA committees regulate individuals’ decision-making and clinicians’ practice? Should the media take a more measured approach to reporting on science and reproduction - or do journalists have a duty to inform us of the worst possible outcomes as well as the most probable? Does pre-implantation genetic screening imply an attack on disabled people? Can biomedical breakthroughs shape what it is to be human?
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head of communications, Wellcome Trust; author, The Geek Manifesto: why science matters
award-winning science fiction writer; author, Descent, The Restoration Game and Intrusion; writer-in-residence, MA Creative Writing, Edinburgh Napier University 2013-2014
communications officer, Progress Educational Trust; webmaster, BioNews
|Dr Alan Thornhill|
scientific director, The London Bridge Fertility, Gynaecology and Genetics Centre
director, Science Media Centre.
Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), which screens embryos for inherited disease so that only unaffected ones are implanted in the womb, has helped hundreds of families to have healthy children since it was developed in the late 1980s by a team led by Professor Alan Handyside of Hammersmith Hospital.Mark Henderson, The Times, 26 October 2009
Researchers at the School have been the first to examine the press coverage of the controversies around creating animal-human hybrid embryos for stem cell research in a new report published this week.Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, 25 June 2009
The Fertility Institutes Back Away From Making HistoryMichael Anissimov, hplus magazine, 11 June 2009
Twins born as a result of fertility treatment are at greater risk of serious illness or dying in the first three years of their life than those who are conceived naturally, a study suggests.David Rose, The Times, 21 May 2009
In recent years knowledge of our genetic code has changed our understanding of life on Earth. New genetic technologies are transforming the way we live and promise treatments for otherwise incurable diseases. But these advances are also generating controversy, particularly surrounding issues such as cloning and designer babies.
Mark Henderson, Quercus, 2 April 2009
Recent weeks have seen a furore erupt over controversial laws that would allow the creation of human-animal embryos for research, with much talk of the sacredness of human life and the danger of scientists playing God.Roger Highfield, Telegraph, 8 April 2008
Sandy Starr of the Progress Educational Trust asks why the UK government is legislating against something as rare as pro-deaf embryo selection.Sandy Starr, spiked, 31 March 2008
What this couple seem to have been trying to do is simply object to the Human Embryology and Fertility Bill which makes it illegal to implant aThe Goldfish, BBC Ouch! Blog, 14 March 2008
From miltary hardware to medical science, technology provokes some tough moral questions.Jonathan Weber, The Times, 19 November 2007