The new medical technology of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) involves fertilizing an egg and growing an embryo in a lab for five days before removing (with a pipette, as shown) one of eight undifferentiated cells to test for abnormalities.
When a couple carry a family history of cystic fibrosis, they have a one-in-four chance of giving birth to a baby with the life-threatening respiratory disease. The odds are no better with sickle cell anemia, Duchenne muscular dystrophy and many other inherited diseases.
But medical technology is improving those odds for some prospective parents, reducing the risk to nearly zero.
Genetic diseases can be stopped in the laboratory by separating healthy embryos from defective ones.
This technology -- available in Akron since 2002 -- brings with it, however, ethical dilemmas about the quest for ``perfect'' children, how society views disabilities, whether wealth should determine access to the technology and, ultimately, what constitutes a human life.
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