Lisa and Jack Nash of Colorado each carry a normal and a faulty gene for Fanconi anemia. They had a 25 percent chance of having a child with the disease, which causes a failure of bone-marrow cell production. Children with
Lisa and Jack Nash of Colorado each carry a normal and a faulty gene for Fanconi anemia. They had a 25 percent chance of having a child with the disease, which causes a failure of bone-marrow cell production. Children with the disease generally die by age 7.
Their daughter, Molly, was born with the disease. As she approached her sixth birthday, her only hope of survival was to replace her diseased cells with healthy ones from a perfectly matched sibling.
So last year, the Nashes found themselves in a laboratory in Illinois, about to set in motion an unprecedented procedure that has raised fundamental questions about procreation in the high-tech 21st century: How much tinkering is too much? Are there acceptable and unacceptable reasons to have children?
To save their daughter’s life, the Nashes produced 15 in-vitro embryos, each made up of about 100 to 200 cells and each about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.
Researchers plucked one cell from each embryo and used genetic tests to see which were both free of the disease and a perfect match for Molly. Two fit the bill, and one was healthy enough to be transferred to Lisa Nash’s womb.
In August, she gave birth to a boy named Adam. Doctors saved the blood cells from his umbilical cord, and these healthy cells were transplanted into Molly two weeks ago. She now has an 85 to 90 percent chance of being cured.
The Nashes are the first known couple to screen their embryos in order to find one that could save the life of a sibling. It’s difficult to see anything bad in saving a 6-year-old, but some wonder if this is another step toward turning babies into commodities that can be custom-manufactured like dolls.
I keep reading that soon we’ll have the technology to screen embryos for intelligence and beauty and athletic ability. We’ll choose whether we want a boy or a girl. We’ll discard embryos with even the slightest defects because our children must be the perfect accessories to our perfect lives. That’s what the doomsayers predict anyway.
So it was no surprise that when Scottish scientists cloned a sheep a few years ago, President Clinton issued an executive order banning the use of federal funds for human cloning research, citing his fears of an ethical “slippery slope.” Yet researchers around the world are finding that cloned human embryos could likely be used to “grow” perfectly matched replacement parts for ourselves.
If wealthy people someday choose to use the technology to produce children to fit their likings, well, it wouldn’t be the first time. People have had children for all kinds of bad reasons over the years: to work on farms, to hedge against a bad marriage, to fill the hours in the day, to carry out a parent’s failed dreams, to keep alive the family name.
The Nashes had their own reasons, and they found the technology to meet the needs of everyone involved: Their newborn was assured of not having the inherited bone-marrow disease; their daughter has a great chance of living into adulthood; and the Nashes have the second child they’ve always wanted.
I am not yet one of the doomsayers. I rejoice in the Nashes’ technological triumph. This is exactly how such technology should be used: to save lives in what seems to us nonscientific types as nothing short of a miracle.
We don’t know yet where the boundaries are in this new science. We don’t have all the answers; we don’t even have all the questions. The dark possibilities send chills down our backs, conjuring images of “The Boys From Brazil.” But the Nashes’ happy ending is a powerful reminder of what technology, guided by common sense and noble intent, can make possible.
Joan Ryan is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Send comments to her in care of this newspaper or send her e-mail at mailto:joanryan@sfchronicle.com.
Copyright 2004, Newspaper Enterprise Assn.
