Genetic screening technology now allows parents employing in vitro fertilization (IVF) to select for certain traits, allowing them to avoid passing on diseases or undesirable traits to their children.
Orchid, a genetic screening company that bills itself as “the world’s most advanced whole genome screening for embryos during IVF,” allows parents essentially to customize children, selecting not just against deadly diseases but also for particular heights and eye colors.
One technology cited in an April 1, 2025, New York Times article is known as polygenic risk scoring, and its use with IVF has raised questions.
“The usefulness of polygenic risk scoring in adults is still an open question; its application to embryos is even less straightforward,” wrote Anna Louie Sussman.
President Trump plans to release his policy recommendations surrounding IVF in May, which may further put the topic in the spotlight.
Orchid customers get an extensive risk analysis of their embryos’ susceptibility to any number of health conditions, including autism, obesity, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, and breast cancer.
Although the company advertises its ability to screen for intellectual disability, there is little or no distinction between that and classic eugenics, weeding out the perceived lower-quality embryos and choosing the higher-quality (higher IQ) embryos.
‘Questionable Science’
Stem cell researcher and bioethicist David A. Prentice, Ph.D., calls preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) “eugenics at the earliest days of life.” Orchid and similar companies are “using questionable science that is actually not nearly as accurate as advertised,” said Prentice.
“Despite the hype, the evidence on PGT and polygenic screening shows that it doesn’t improve efficiencies and may actually decrease chances of a healthy, full-term pregnancy,” said Prentice.
Prentice’s December 2024 paper, “The Facts of Life: A Review of the Science and Ethics of IVF,” cited studies that found PGT “does not improve pregnancy, implantation, or live birth rates and should not be used except perhaps for research studies,” wrote Prentice. “As far as ethics, if you ‘select’ some embryos as ‘high quality,’ you are also judging other human embryos to be low-quality, lower-grade beings, even unworthy of life,” said Prentice. “That embryonic attitude toward other humans is inhumane.”
Moral, Legal Differences
There are legal and moral distinctions between different kinds of gene editing and genetic tests, says Prentice.
“Currently, use of such eugenic tests to select embryos is legal in the United States,” said Prentice. “But the next step, gene editing of embryos for heritable genomic alterations, is illegal based on the Aderholt Amendment, first signed into law in 2015.”
The Aderholt Amendment was a bipartisan amendment signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2015 to “preclude the FDA from reviewing any investigational new drug application related to intentional germline editing,” reported GEN News.
“Somatic gene editing, i.e. gene editing that is not heritable but used to treat born individuals for specific diseases, is ethical and should be encouraged,” such as new gene therapies approved by the FDA for sickle cell disease, said Prentice. “But there should be a global moratorium on heritable genomic editing.”
Eugenic Editing
Governments should ban the practice of designing babies, says Michelle Cretella, M.D., president of the American College of Pediatricians.
“Gene editing for designer babies is eugenics—the death of countless innocent human lives at the embryonic stage is required,” said Cretella. “Like all eugenics, it must be banned.”
Such gene editing is a violation of children’s rights, says Cretella.
“Children have the God-given and natural right to be loved and raised by their mother and father,” said Cretella. “Mothers and fathers have the right and responsibility to love, nurture, educate, and protect their children.”
Designing babies makes a huge presumption that parenthood[SK1] by any means is justified, says Cretella.
“Parents who fail through abuse may lose custody of their children,” said Cretella. “Adults do not have the right to [have] children. Children are gifts from God, not made-to-order luxury items or trophies.”
People As Products
The ability to pick and choose traits brings up larger questions about IVF, says Jane Orient, M.D., executive director of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons.
“‘Designer babies’ are also human, and in creating one acceptable to the buyers, many of its brothers and sisters are destroyed,” said Orient.
It is possible to cherish IVF babies while criticizing the methods used to conceive them, says Orient.
“What does this say about respect for human life?” said Orient. “It becomes a commodity, not a priceless gift. What if the chosen one turns out to be defective?
“Human gene editing is promoted as a way to cure certain diseases with a known genetic defect—sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, some errors of metabolism,” said Orient. “So far, [it has achieved] no great success. Most other things are far more complex, and we really don’t know the consequences of making a change here and there. Disasters are certain to occur.”
Doctors and researchers should concentrate on finding more ethical solutions to infertility, says Orient.
“Infertility is very sad, and we should be working on ways to help—without playing God,” said Orient. “Our culture is creating a lot of infertility: STDs, delayed childbearing, possibly some contraceptives and abortions. We’re trying to fix it with science, but the end still doesn’t justify the means.”
Harry Painter ([email protected]) writes from Oklahoma.
Internet info:
DPrentice.org, “The Facts of Life: A Review of the Science and Ethics of IVF,” Dec 11, 2024: https://dprentice.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/The-Facts-of-Life-A-Review-of-the-Science-and-Ethics-of-IVF-Prentice-Dec24.pdf
For related articles, click here.
Harry Painter ([email protected]) writes from Brooklyn, New York.
