Don’t mistake having a better map for knowing where you are: new technology for sequencing fetal DNA will not lead to serious trait selection

The Takeaway “New Developments in DNA Sequencing”

The problem with this kind of story is that it confuses listeners. While it may be a technological advance to be able to perform complete genetic sequencing of a fetus without risky invasive procedures, this new ability does not necessarily lead to the kind of “baby selection” that is portrayed in the piece. Will people potentially be more likely to abort a fetus because it has a genetic disorder that is well understood to lead to serious health issues? Probably. Will some push that boundary further by aborting a child that is detected to have increased risk of some disease? Maybe, and that does get into murky ethical waters. But are parents going to be aborting fetuses that are not tall enough or smart enough? No! Why? Well, primarily because we do not have the genetic understanding of meaningful traits necessary to allow the ‘reading’ of a full-genome ‘map’.

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis already exists, so for those who want to start playing baby selector the technology is already there. For this reason this news is kind of a non-starter in the eugenics department. What’s significant here is that parents may some day be able to choose a less invasive means of screening for serious disease in early-term fetuses. Although I think the question of which genetic diagnoses merit aborting a fetus is a tough one, I do think parents should be given the chance to know if their potential child will suffer.