Genetic Oddity:
Girl Could Give Birth To Her Sister
By James Donahue
We knew even
in the early years of genetic research and DNA mapping that humans were on the brink of becoming gods of creation.
Christian Bible-thumping
preachers declared it sin and warned their followers against practicing such evil. Born-again President George W. Bush refused
to allow federal dollars to be used for genetic research even though great medical discoveries were emerging from the work
going on overseas. (After a long wait President Barack Obama reversed the Bush decision.)
And odd things
have been coming to light, as we all should have expected. That does not necessarily make them either sinful or immoral. It
just shows that interesting situations can be possible with a little creative imagination.
We note here
the story of a Montreal woman who froze her eggs so that her daughter, suffering from a rare syndrome that makes her infertile,
might one-day choose to have a child of her own, raised a few Canadian eyebrows.
If she chooses
to accept one of the eggs and with her chosen mate bear a child, the girl, now only approaching her teen years, may one day
become the mother of her biological half-brother or half-sister.
Doctors say the
girl has Turner syndrome, a condition in which one of the two X chromosomes found in women is missing. They say this almost
always causes infertility, although women who have this condition have been capable of conceiving with donated eggs.
This is the first
case in which the eggs have been frozen in advance preparation, and thus are coming from the mother of the syndrome afflicted
child while the donor’s eggs remain fertile.
Of course the
story quickly became the subject of a variety of jokes and complex situation scenarios. Consider, one person wrote, how complicated
it would be for the girl to explain to her child that they were sisters, or brother and sister, and the mother as well.
That such unique
genetic pruning can be arranged because of modern science is most remarkable. While it does not cure the syndrome, it certainly
puts light on a possible way to resolve its effects on the child's future.
It is possible,
however, because of the amazing strides already taken by world researchers that the genetic malfunction within this child
that produced Turners Syndrome, may be fixed before she ever has to make such a decision.
Indeed, humans
are on the very brink of becoming gods. The irony is that we also are on the very brink of going extinct. This is a critical
time of choosing which path we will follow. It is time for the religious crusaders of the world to be set aside and for all
mankind to unite in a common cause . . . saving ourselves from the ultimate destruction.