Embryo Selection

Question 1

What is Embryo Selection?

Answer 1

It’s another way of preventing babies from having genetic disorders. Embryos can be produced by In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF)

Question 2

What are the stages of IVF?

Answer 2

Ova are harvested from the mother and fertilised
The embryos are tested for the faulty allele
Healthy embryos are implanted into the uterus and the pregnancy proceeds as normal.

Question 3

What is the procedure for embryo selection called?

Answer 3

Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD)

Question 4

What are the stages of PGD?

Answer 4

After fertilisation the embryos are allowed to divide into 8 cells before a single cell is removed from each one for testing.
The cells are tested to see if they carry the alleles for a specific genetic disorder.

Question 5

What are the views on Embryo Selection?

Answer 5

Embryo selection is controversial;
Some people believe it’s unnatural
There are concerns that people could select certain characteristics; such as eye colour, sex etc

Question 6

What are main concerns with Pre-selection?

Answer 6

Pre-selection of a baby’s characteristics could reduce variation.

For example; if most people selected blue eyes for their baby, in time the brown eye allele could disappear