Green light for 'designer babies'

An Auckland clinic has been given the go-ahead to begin screening embryos for parents wanting to give birth to babies without genetic disorders.

The screening technology - pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) - will allow parents who are at risk of passing on certain inherited diseases to choose a "healthy" embryo to start a pregnancy.

The long-awaited move has been welcomed by parents keen to use the service, but opponents fear it is the start of a slippery slope towards "designer babies" and discrimination against those with disabilities.

Auckland fertility clinic Fertility Associates received ethical approval for screening earlier this month, and expects to begin using it within the next couple of months.

It is currently the only centre in New Zealand able to provide PGD.

Ethical guidelines approved in March prohibit parents from using PGD for social reasons, such as to choose a sex.

But despite such restrictions, opponents have questioned the morality of embryo selection.

Bruce Logan, director of right-leaning think-tank the Maxim Institute, said selecting embryos brought in an element of consumerism: "It might not be playing God but it's moving in that direction."

Right to Life spokesman Ken Orr said the group strongly opposed PGD because it would be used to deny children with disabilities the right to be born.

"We see it as a search and destroy mission," he said. "The message this community is giving to society is that, unless you're well and healthy, you don't have a right to be here."

Fertility Associates co-founder Richard Fisher said he knew of about seven people who had expressed an interest in PGD.

Widely used overseas, the technology was previously available only to New Zealanders willing to travel to large cities such as Sydney, and pay more than $10,000 for each attempt at the procedure.

The Government has yet to make a decision on public funding, but Dr Fisher expects two PGD procedures will be fully funded: for people at risk of having children with a single gene disorder and for a small number of women under 40 at risk of chromosomal abnormalities.

It is expected that between 15 and 30 people a year will seek PGD to screen for single gene disorders.

Parents rapt at clinic's plans

Parents Donna Slater, 37, and Steve Annan, 36, were devastated to learn they were both "carriers" of the defective gene responsible for the inherited disease. "We wouldn't have married if we'd known," says Mrs Slater.

Doctors told the couple, from Ngaruawahia, Waikato, that their child had a 1:4 chance of having cystic fibrosis and a 50:50 chance of being a healthy carrier.

They would love another child and, when they heard about a test that could screen embryos for inherited diseases, they thought their prayers had been answered.

They would like to try a PGD-assisted pregnancy in November, but cannot afford it on their own and are awaiting a Government decision on public funding. To those who say she has no right to "play God", Mrs Slater says: "Walk in my shoes for just one day and you'll understand."

- Herald on Sunday