Posted by Samuel Phineas Upham
How far would you go to save your firstborn child suffering from Fanconi anemia? Would you bring a second child into this world with the hope that he or she might be able to save your first child? Two families had to face these questions and in fact did go as far as they could possible go to help save their children. In the article “The Made-to-Order Savior,” writer Lisa Belkin chronicles the lives of two sets of parents with children suffering from Fanconi anemia.
It starts with both children at the hospital undergoing their bone-marrow transplants, the only chance they have to survive the disease. While both families might be experiencing similar feelings, thoughts, and issues, there is one difference: one child is receiving a transplant from a matching sibling donor, while the other is getting the transplant from a stranger with a bone-marrow that is not an exact match. For this reason, the article is especially moving. Both parents did all that they could (“had raced time, death, threats of government intervention and (although they cringe to admit it) each other, to make medical history.”) and yet only one child will make it out alive.
The article also touches upon the obvious ethical issues with this type of method. “If we can screen an embryo for tissue type, won’t we one day screen for eye color or intelligence? There was talk in the news media of “Frankenstein medicine” and threats by Congress to ban embryo research, which had made this technique possible.”
Read the entire article: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/01/magazine/01FANCONI.html