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This is the true life story about the Donovan family who live in Dunbar, Scotland. When Angela Donovan was born, she had a rare form of inherited cancer in one of her eyes. When she was a  four-month-old baby she had to have the eye removed. Many years later, Angela, had her own baby, a boy named Kieran. Kieran was born with the same rare eye cancer, he inherited it from his mother. He had to undergo extensive and aggressive hospital treatments as a baby, including 18 months of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and other treatments. Kieran was often distressed by his treatments, as were his parents. "It was a really rough time," she said. "His first year of life was just miserable; the kind of thing no mother would ever wish to put her child through."

Now Angela and her husband would like another child, but this time they want to use PGD to screen embryos , so that they use only embryos that are free of the disease.

 “We would like another baby, but naturally it is a big risk to take, and without PGD, we would be left playing Russian roulette – or we wouldn’t be having any more children, which would be devastating for me.”

Some people think that embryo screening should be limited to only screening out diseases that would kill the baby.

Dr Richard Nicholson (Bulletin of Medical Ethics) says ‘ If the condition is something that is curable, as in this case, or is going to allow 15 – 20 years of life that is something immensely valuable both to the child and the family.

What do you think?

What would happen if the Donovan’s are allowed to use PGD to select a healthy baby?

What would happen if they do not get permission?

Should screening of embryos be limited to only some conditions, maybe only diseases that cannot be treated or cured?

What affect do you think spending so much time in hospital, and undergoing so much treatment, would have had on Kieran as a baby and now as a little boy?

What Happened?

When the Donovan’s applied to their local health authority (Lothian and Borders) to use PGD, the health authority refused to fund the £6000 treatment.

The Donovan’s had to resort to using the more traditional pre-natal testing of pregnancies, and termination of any affected pregnancy.

Angela’s next pregnancies resulted in two terminations, a source of great sadness to her.

"Each baby had the gene, and it would have been extra hard to have another child go through that," she said. "I was always if not anti-abortion, then someone who could never see a situation where it would be an option for me. How things change. The decision to abort was almost worse than Kieran being diagnosed, but I did the only thing I could do for me and my family."

In 2005, Lothian and Borders Health Authority, reversed its decision and decided to offer the Donovans PGD to select an embryo without eye cancer. In August 2005, the HFA (Human Fertilisation Authority) awarded a license for the Donovan’s to use PGD to select embryos without eye cancer. "We have been waiting for this for years, and it’s fantastic that we can finally start," Mrs Donovan said.  "I understand fully people who think this is taking it too far, but if you have had to hold your baby down screaming while someone sticks a chemotherapy needle in him, you will understand my position too." "We interfere with nature by giving chemotherapy. If nature took its course Kieran would be dead. I’d be dead. Surely it is better to screen embryos than to put people through the trauma of tests and abortions?" In 2006, after using PGD, Angela Donovan was pregnant with a healthy baby.   “I will have a baby that is healthy and that I can look at. I found I couldn’t even look at Keiran when he was ill, as I felt too guilty....the one thing a mother does from the minute their baby is born, is to protect it from everything... but the first thing I did was give my baby cancer.”  Read BBC article about this story