Article Text
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- Embryos and Fetuses
- In Vitro Fertilization and Embryo Transfer
- Genetic Screening/Testing
- Public Policy
- Predictive Genetic Testing
Tomasz Zuradzki's recent article is a valuable contribution to bioethical discourse on preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). His argument circumvents the non-identity problem that plagues other defences of PGD. He also offers an effective critique of Mark Walker's ‘box game’ argument for genetic testing.
Nevertheless, he seems wrong to assert that anyone should accept his argument, even if they ‘believe embryos have full moral status and their right to life can never be balanced with any other social or individual benefits’.1 Zuradzki believes that his argument concerning the ‘hypothetical rationality’ and ‘patient autonomy’ of embryos binds everyone—no ethical frameworks excepted—to endorse PGD in certain circumstances.1 Hence, he concludes his article by writing
Even if somebody perceives the freezing and subsequent destruction of the surplus embryos remaining after an in vitro procedure to the moral equivalent of killing …
Footnotes
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Competing interests None.
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Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.
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↵i Brugger's article3 also contains a summary of the minority opposing view.
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↵ii An earlier Church, document, Donum Vitae, echoes Dignitas Personae when describing the “absurd fate” that embryos are exposed to. See reference 6.
Linked Articles
- Reproductive ethics
- Reproductive ethics
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