DISCLAIMER: This isn't a terribly great article, but the vignette at the beginning of the it really stuck with me.
Some sperm donor guy apparently passed on a "cancer gene" to a whole bunch of babies. Obviously, people want to figure out how to not do that.
Thankfully, it's not as bad as you think. Desmet cites a newspaper article about the event which reassures us:
It’s important to keep in mind that the likelihood of a donor passing on a pathogenic variant is significantly lower than in traditional bedroom-based reproduction. That’s because the family history of candidate donors is mapped out and their DNA is screened for the most common genetic variants. Candidate donors with increased risk are rejected.
This is where Desmet really gets worked up.
Sperm donation is already safer than traditional reproduction. That statement is a monstrosity — at least if you more or less correctly locate the purpose of life. As if human beings would become more human by having their reproduction take place under clinically controlled conditions.
He takes us down a slippery slope to where it's a crime to conceive babies naturally anymore...which is a bit much...I think?
Some close friends are doing IVF and in addition to the process being incredibly rough on women, it's struck me how commonplace it is now for people to talk about "testing embryos for abonormalities." It isn't a far step away from testing your potential spouse for abnormalities. Seems like a sad world.