Gene Shopping

This raises a host of ethical questions but knowing several women who are breast cancer survivors and others who have died I ultimately agree with Mr. Serhal.

From the Daily Mail...

The first British baby designed to be free of breast cancer is due to be born this week.

The child's parents opted for genetic screening tests in the hope of freeing their children from the disease which has blighted the lives of their relatives for generations.

'I thought this was something I had to try because, if we had a daughter with this gene, and she was ill, I couldn't look her in the face and say I didn't try.'

Had the couple conceived naturally, any child would have a 50 per cent chance of carrying the rogue gene. And any girl with the BRCA1 gene would have an 80 per cent chance of developing a fast-spreading, hard-totreat form of breast cancer.

Addressing concerns that this is another step towards the creation of babies made to order by characteristics such as eye colour or hair colour, Mr Serhal said: 'This is a serious disease, not a physical characteristic. We are not screening for something banal or irrelevant.'