A team of scientists at the University of Washington has cracked the entire code of a human fetus using only a sample of blood from its mother and a saliva smear from its father.
The technology is a significant step toward standard comprehensive testing of babies in the womb for genetic defects — those that mark serious disorders as well as those indicating risk for such diseases as alcoholism and obesity. And it potentially provides a window into non-medical heritable traits, such as hair and eye colour, athletic prowess and IQ.
Rather than saving lives, pro-lifers see this prenatal testing as an enhanced “search and destroy” diagnostic tool that exponentially expands the genetic information available on unborn babies — so that parents may have up to 3,500 genetic possibilities to weigh into a decision about whether or not to have an abortion.
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