Being able to prevent cancer in your babies

For some years now, science has been promising many changes in the field of medical sciences. This includes determining problems in many different areas, trying to find solutions for them, and so on. One area that has raised ethical issues is about the field of applying genetic cures in the field of embryos. There is a fear that eventually, without resolving such ethical debates, these advances in the field of science will be used to select 'designer' babies. The following is an example of a case where advances in medical science were used for a good cause:

A woman has conceived Britain’s first baby guaranteed to be free from hereditary breast cancer. Doctors screened out from the woman’s embryos an inherited gene that would have left the baby with a greater than 50% chance of developing the cancer. The woman decided to have her embryos screened because her husband had tested positive for the gene and his sister, mother, grandmother and cousin have all had the cancer.
The 27-year-old British mother, who asked not to be named, says that after seeing all her husband’s female relatives suffer from breast cancer, she felt she had to take action to save their children from the same plight. Any daughter born with the gene would have had a 50% to 85% chance of developing breast cancer. The couple’s doctor, Paul Serhal, medical director of the Assisted Conception Unit at University College London hospital, said the breakthrough gives parents the option of avoiding passing a high risk of breast cancer on to their children.

This is very good news, letting people avoid the pain of not being able to prevent the chances of an enhanced risk of the disease passing onto their children.