Event: Genetic Testing and Embryo Selection: The future of medicine or the new eugenics?

8:00pm, Tue, 21 Nov 2017
Wynn's Hotel, Lower Abbey Street, Dublin 1

Kevin Mitchell, Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin

Advances in genetics provide unprecedented power to predict more and more traits and diseases in in vitro fertilized embryos prior to implantation. These technologies have the potential to prevent many inherited disorders by selection of genetically healthy embryos. At the same time, they raise important moral and ethical questions. What qualifies as a disorder? Should selection of non-medical traits be permitted? Will genome editing of human embryos become a reality? Should selection for things like deafness or dwarfism or for so-called saviour siblings be allowed? Does the idea of selection at all commodify human beings? Does it alter the relationship between parents and offspring?

8:00pm
Tue, 21 Nov, 2017

Wynn's Hotel, Lower Abbey Street, Dublin 1

€3 for members and concessions €6 for non-members

€3 for members and concessions €6 for non-members

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