Breaking Bioethics

1. Breaking Bioethics By Lara Canham And Danny Nolan

2. Old Ageand Pregnancy

3. Adriana Iliescu

4. A 66 year-old Romanian woman recently gave birth to a baby girl, becoming the oldest mother • Doctors used in vitro fertilization, and the sperm and egg from other (younger) people to get her pregnant • To save her girl, doctors preformed a cesarean section 33 weeks into the pregnancy and removed a 3.1 pound premature baby. • It was her third attempt at carrying a pregnancy to full term after starting fertility treatment in 1995

5. There is no age limit in place in Romania for fertility treatment. • The European Union, which Romania hopes to join, usually restricts the treatment, but the actual age limit varies from country to country

6. How Old is too Old to Give Birth? • Iliescu was receiving fertility treatment because she was no longer able to produce eggs…because of her age • Any woman over the age of 40 who gets pregnant constitutes a high risk pregnancy because the health risks, to both the mother and the baby, skyrocket at that age • Iliescu lost one fetus early in the pregnancy, and “gave birth” to one still born baby. And even though the surviving girl was only a few weeks premature, she was “born” at a dangerous 3.1 pounds

7. But too old to be a Parent? • When Iliescu’s girl becomes a teenager, Iliescu will be 80 • There is doubt about whether the elder parent will be alive long enough to see their child graduate from high school, let alone college • Some say that no one complains when old men, such as Tony Randall and Strom Thurmond, become fathers. Note, however, that both of these men have died since having their children. www.msnbc.com

8. Cloning

10. What is cloning? • Cloning is the process of making genetically identical organisms from a single parent • Developments in genetic engineering, and especially cloning, show some promising ideas, but also raise some concerns

11. Pro-Cloning • Cloning stem cells would help provide the treatment to some diseases. Doctors may be able to replace tissues that have been lost to the disease or, in the case of chemotherapy, the treatment with the cloned stem cells • Cloning individual organ tissue can lead to increased organs available for transplantation

12. Cloning could also help provide scientists with a better understanding of some genetic diseases • The cloning of genetically modified farm animals can have agricultural and industrial advantages • For instance, genetically modified cows can produce milk with certain drugs inside for mass production

13. Anti-Cloning • Cloning, especially cloning humans, would eventually lead to the loss of genetic diversity, which has helped us survive • If all people have the same type of genes, then the human race, as a whole, is left very weak against certain diseases • Many people believe that cloning is, effectively, playing God.

14. Cloning would lead to a different type of human, a type of human that is property of the original host, property which can be sold to anyone else. Selling human life, any human life is inhumane and unethical • It could conceivably undermine the basic elements of a loving family because it changes the way in which a child is created

15. Face Transplants

17. Basic Information • Face transplants can help people who have suffered severe burn damage or the effects of oral cancer recover some semblance of a normal face • The face would be removed from someone who has recently died • Skin is the hardest organ to transplant

18. Problems • The cocktail of drugs that has been developed to keep the body from rejecting the face could easily lead to cancer or kidney failure. • Additionally, the face could still reject leaving the recipient with no options and death very likely to occur • The problem also arises that the person with this newly transplanted face could remind or haunt the family and friends of the recently deceased donor