Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
scandalous, moreover, that he (and the rest of us) should have either
advantages or disadvantages simply because of the accident of birth. But
precisely the same is true for each of us, both in our biological where-
withal and our initial stations in life (which family, which place, which
time). Is it not outrageous that any of us is born at all, with all of what
we are and who we become?
All that is a kind of prologue to something more puzzling still. This
arises from the choice Ben faces when Jean, now back with her infertile
husband, asks Ben to use his sperm for the in vitro fertilization she has
asked him to perform. He agrees. Later, he checks the fertilized eggs, has
an associate gently suck up each embryo in turn, while he himself does
the polymerase chain reaction amplification. He determines that embryos
two, five, six, and seven are unaffected; they show no misspelling of
adenine by guanine. Yet he also determines that one, two, four, and eight
show that very mutation; adenine has been replaced with guanine, and
achondroplasia is irreversibly on the way.
By chance, four “normals” and four “mutations” have come about as
dwarfs-to-be—if allowed to be all. What should Ben do? Note well: he
can
actually choose one or more embryos to implant; he can select which,
by implanting, will be allowed to grow into a baby. Is this the way God
goes about the business of human birth? Should Ben “play God”? Mawer
sets the scene: “Benedict Lambert is sitting in his laboratory” with eight
embryos in eight little tubes. “Four of the embryos,” he reflects, “are
proto-Benedicts, proto-dwarfs; the other four are, for want of a better
word, normal. How should he choose? And is his choice, whatever it
may be, acting or 'playing' like God?” Ben continues:
Of course, we all know that God has opted for the easy way out. He has decided
on chance as the way to select one combination of genes from another. If you
want to shun euphemisms, then God allows pure luck to decide whether a mutant
child or a normal child shall be born. But Benedict Lambert has the possibility
of beating God's proxy and overturning the tables of chance. He can choose.
Wasn't choice what betrayed Adam and Eve?
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So, Ben is not playing God in the least; if he were to do that, he would
find a way to let chance work its way, not him. But Ben can choose, and
when he makes the choice, does the deed, and the baby is on its way,
Jean telephones to ask him what he did: “Is it all right?” Which embryo
was implanted? The conversation heats up as Ben evades and dodges,
