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Updated: May 28, 2026

FISH for Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis
Published on: February 23, 2011
[Select embryos: preimplantation genetic diagnosis]
Natalia López Moratalla1, Marta Lago Fernández Purón, Esteban Santiago
1Dpto. de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular. Universidad de Navarra. natalialm@unav.es
Abstract:
The ability to detect chromosomal or genetic defects in embryos in vitro, associated with assisted human reproduction techniques before his possible transfer to the uterus to complete its development was presented as an alternative to eugenic abortion. And an option for older women to procreate, to avoid pregnancy of embryos with chromosomal defects. Genetic diagnosis before implantation (PGD) and screening of embryos in vitro (by the acronym, PSC), offers the image of the disabled person as an individual excluded from society. It assumes a direct human experimentation without therapeutic purposes or to manipulate the embryo that is chosen or discarded according to diagnosis or for advancement in perinatal medicine. Because these techniques can have multiple embryos, eugenics has also generated a ″positive eugenics″ that seeks to select embryos according to a third party, having certain characteristics, sex, or lack of predisposition to disease. Several issues demand unavoidable ethical duty to report on this form of eugenics, in addition to be directly and intentionally directed to destroy human life in its early stages, and does not meet the minimum requirements of rigorous scientific research or biotechnology. There have been no previous animal tests to validate the techniques so that there are serious errors in diagnosis with false positives and false negatives. Recently it has been shown that some discarded embryos can eliminate their detected defects two days after the biopsy. Moreover, the study about what may or may not be diagnosed is retrospective and unrecoverable damage. And, of particular importance is the fact that it is not known with certainty the effects that an embryo biopsy may cause to those diagnosed.

