An article in the London’s Times newspaper discussed a British woman who participated in in vitro fertilization (IVF).  A number of embryos were created with her eggs and her husband’s sperm; she then had the embryos screened for the breast cancer gene and chose the one that did not contain the gene.  The article stated,

 By screening out embryos carrying the gene, called BRCA-1, the couple, from London, will eliminate the hereditary disease from their lineage.

It seems reasonable enough, but who are we to determine which tiny little life is more valuable?  Is the life of someone who has gone through or even dies from the throes of breast cancer less worth living?  I dare say not.  In fact it is horrifying to imply such a thing is true.  However, by picking and choosing the genes of her implanted offspring like this, that is exactly what this woman is declaring.  Sure she thinks of the pain her family members went through trying to fight cancer.  And she thinks she’s protecting her children from the same fate.  But the gene is only an indicator that her child MIGHT develop breast cancer; it’s not a guarantee.  Not only that, but she is denying her other children any viable chance at life.

What comes next?  Someone prefers brown eyes to other eye color, so they’ll implant only their brown-eyed embryos.  Someone wants a boy, so all the girl embryos are discarded.  This reeks of eugenics, the early 20^th century movement to create a “purified” human race devoid of undesirables.  What we were left with was Nazi doctors performing experiments on “undesirables” and wiping out generations of whole peoples.

This is a dangerous road down which to travel.  People argue that it will never get as bad as late 1930s Germany.  But history shows we have brief memories.  Ninety percent of all children diagnosed with Down Syndrome are aborted.  If that’s not reminiscent of extermination, I don’t know what is.