From Dick Smithells
The ethical problems of pre-implantation screening are difficult enough already (“Every child a perfect child?”, 28 October), but there is at least one further dimension to add. The would-be-mother with familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) has already had her colon removed and is at serious risk of developing further tumours, which are likely to prove fatal. IVF after pre-implantation screening may result in a baby without FAP which may soon become a child without a mother.
If Theresa Marteau had interviewed paediatricians as well as obstetricians and geneticists, this point might have emerged. Motherlessness is also a disability.
