{"id":34092,"date":"2025-05-14T17:12:56","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T17:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cincinnatirighttolife.org\/?p=34092"},"modified":"2025-05-14T17:15:21","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T17:15:21","slug":"should-parents-play-god-new-tech-lets-parents-test-embryos-for-obesity-autism-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cincinnatirighttolife.org\/should-parents-play-god-new-tech-lets-parents-test-embryos-for-obesity-autism-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"Should Parents Play God? New Tech Lets Parents Test Embryos for Obesity, Autism Risk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By: Katrina Trinko, originally published April 27, 2025, The Daily Signal<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHave it your way\u201d isn\u2019t just for fast-food burgers anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also for babies<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orchid, which labels itself as \u201cthe world\u2019s most advanced whole genome screening for embryos during IVF,\u201d was highlighted in a recent New York Times<\/a> article<\/a> headlined \u201cThis baby was carefully selected as an embryo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orchid, writes journalist Anna Louie Sussman, \u201cscreens embryos\u2019 DNA for hundreds of conditions\u201d and also \u201coffer[s] what is known as polygenic screening, which gives parents what is essentially a risk profile on each embryo\u2019s propensity for conditions, such as heart disease.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Parents who opt to use Orchid get an extensive analysis of their embryos\u2019 risk analysis for a variety of health conditions, including (but not limited to) autism, severe obesity, Alzheimer\u2019s, inflammatory bowel disease, schizophrenia, diabetes, and breast cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a 2024 video, Orchid founder Noor Siddiqui compares the screening of two of her 16 embryos. Embryo 2 and Embryo 3, Siddiqui notes, are both \u201cchromosomally normal.\u201d But Embryo 3 has an elevated risk for breast cancer. Embryo 2, she adds, has an elevated risk for celiac disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Left unknown is whether either Embryo 2 or Embryo 3 will get a chance to grow up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to our brave new world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe last thing that I would want is \u2018Hey, we already today know that \u2026 this genetic disease exists, but \u2026 umm \u2026 I just didn\u2019t bother just to see if that\u2019s something that would affect my future child,\u2019\u201d Siddiqui says earnestly in the video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think, basically, sex is for fun and embryo-screening is for babies,\u201d she adds. \u201cI think that it\u2019s going to become insane not to screen for these things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Insane?<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The ugliness of Orchid is that once you do embryo-screening, you already have a human being<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t take my word for it. Take the word of Leah Culver, whose son Japhy was the first Orchid baby born. In the video, she shows her son, then three months old, a photo of him in his embryo stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s you, Bud,\u201d Culver coos to her son. \u201cThat\u2019s you when you were like five cells. \u2026 Five days old.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lucky Japhy, whose genetic risks weren\u2019t high enough to keep him mired in a frozen world<\/a> forever, unable to grow and develop because of a parent\u2019s fear that one day he might be fat or have digestive issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor is Orchid alone in this. A competitor, Genome Prediction, offers similar testing<\/a>, allowing you to look at your embryos\u2019 respective risks for diseases, such as asthma and melanoma (skin cancer).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, it\u2019s understandable that parents ideally want healthy children. No one wants to see their children suffer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Siddiqui cites her mother\u2019s disease of retinitis pigmentosa, which causes blindness, as inspiring her to start Orchid. No doubt her mother\u2019s suffering was awful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But would her mother have preferred to have remained a frozen embryo forever or have died, rather than be blind?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And should parents\u2019 goal be to ensure their children suffer as little as possible?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, parents shouldn\u2019t seek out suffering for their children. But suffering is sometimes critical to producing certain types of great souls. That\u2019s not a popular view in our hedonistic culture\u2014or one that any of us easily accept. But while we should readily reject the idea of imposing suffering on anyone, we should also pause at the idea of saying life is only worth living if it\u2019s unaccompanied by suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, it\u2019s not like these companies can guarantee success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure, parents may pick the lowest-risk embryo of the lot as the one that gets to stay alive and grow up. But that doesn\u2019t guarantee control. That doesn\u2019t guarantee that the child won\u2019t lose a dear friend or loved one to a car accident or other early death. That doesn\u2019t promise that the child will never be hurled into an era with political or violent upheaval. That doesn\u2019t ensure the child will never be up at 3 a.m., eyes blinking, heart pounding from an unexpected nightmare and that bleak nighttime sense of despair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parents, too, have the ability to use these services to screen for more than health.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Take Malcolm and Simone Collins, who publicly advocate for large families and have produced over 40 embryos, some of whom they have screened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing of their experience, Sussman reports that Simone Collins says \u201c[a]necdotally, the tests\u2019 predictive power for behavioral traits\u2014one of the metrics guiding their choice to implant the two embryos that are now their daughters\u2014appears to be strong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Collinses said they wanted daughters who were \u2018low stress,\u2019 and lo and behold, Ms. Collins said, \u2018ultimately both of our daughters are extremely chill and genial,\u2019\u201d Sussman adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How wonderful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Isn\u2019t that what parenthood is about, plucking the child out who best fits your preferences and discarding the rest?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why should parenthood be something where the parents are challenged, where they are given children who stretch them with personalities that differ from their own or their own favored personalities? Why not just kick back and order some kids who seem to fit your desires for having a certain kind of parenthood experience?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s easy to see how this technology quickly creates a universe where children, like wedding venues and houses and cars and designer goods, are just another way for a couple to showcase their personality and preferences. That\u2019s a stark contrast to the Judeo-Christian view of children as being given by God to parents, a blessing from above, not a lifestyle enhancement carefully selected to fit, not upend, a way of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Embryo screening is also a bleak way of looking at our technological future. We have made tremendous advances in medicine in the past 100 years. Who\u2019s to say that there won\u2019t be a cure or at least significantly better treatment for, say, breast cancer and Alzheimer\u2019s by the time these children are old enough to potentially be affected?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re better than this\u2014or should be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All children, all embryos deserve love and a chance to grow up, regardless of their risks for irritable bowel syndrome or obesity, schizophrenia or cancer. That shouldn\u2019t be a radical statement. But in our bleak times, it apparently isn\u2019t an uncontroversial stance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Katrina Trinko is the editor-in-chief of The Daily Signal.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image: Video snip, X post, The Daily Signal.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Katrina Trinko, originally published April 27, 2025, The Daily Signal \u201cHave it your way\u201d isn\u2019t just for fast-food burgers anymore. It\u2019s also for babies. Orchid, which labels itself as \u201cthe world\u2019s most advanced whole genome screening for embryos during IVF,\u201d was highlighted in a recent New York Times article headlined \u201cThis baby was carefully selected as an embryo.\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34093,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nShould Parents Play God? 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