Modern eugenics and genetic sins

The AU$3,440 test, called karyomapping, which should be available as early as next year, will allow couples at risk of passing on gene defects to conceive healthy children using IVF treatment. [My emphasis]

This statement is such a subtle slight of hand, that even I almost missed it.  The karomapping that Savulescu discusses would test embryos created with IVF for genetic disorders, among other things, and then the couple can chose which embryos to implant.  The embryos that do not make the cut are discarded, donated to research or kept in the deep freeze indefinitely.  So Savulescu is very wrong.  Couples will conceive both "healthy" and "defective" embryos.  The defective ones just don't get a chance to finish their lives because they are deemed inferior to their siblings. 

This procedure, a more sophisticated version of preimplantation genetic diagnosis or PGD, does not cure disease.  It just gets rid of those humans that have the disease.  Muehlenberg writes:

But as Australian ethicist Anthony Fisher reminds us, scientists should
focus on curing such diseases rather than eliminating people with the
condition. Genetic screening can easily lead to selective breeding and
selective abortion. It can easily lead us to a return to eugenics

Which brings me to a quote from Leon Kass that Muehlenberg rightly highlights:

One of the most worrisome but least appreciated aspects of the godlike power of the new genetics is its tendency to ‘redefine’ a human being in terms of his genes. Once a person is decisively characterized by his genotype, it is but a short step to justifying death solely for genetic sins.

Anyone who was awake during this election cycle could not escape the vitriol spewed at Sarah Palin.  The irrationality of it made me conclude that her transgression was not just being a conservative.  Her real sin was to give birth to Trig, her Down syndrome son. Open your eyes and you will see that in the eyes of many, including some of the most influential bioethicists in the world, "genetic sins" are already walking among us.