Lawmakers in Germany uphold the best of would-be parents to genetically test embyros after IVF.The Bundestag lower house of parliament voted to allow so-called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis of embryos when one of the partners were built with a serious hereditary disease in the household.
Each case will also be subject to review by an ethics commission and mandate counselling for the concerned couple before testing can be carried out.
Parliament took up the delicate issue after a federal court last year allowed testing by partners having a genetic predisposition to serious illnesses.
Such testing, which is expected to apply to a few hundred cases each year, had always been outlawed in Germany.
After a three-and-a-half-hour, at times emotional debate, 326 deputies cast their ballots towards allowing genetic testing versus 260 who required a strict ban. Eight abstained.
The head of the German Medical Association, Frank Ulrich Montgomery, stressed that such testing would by no means become routine in the event of in vitro fertilisation, or used for sex selection.
"There will be no designer babies as well as no so-called saviour babies used as spare parts for a sick child," he said.However the chairman from the Episcopal Conference, Roman Catholic Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, slammed the vote as "a violation of the principle of respecting human dignity" enshrined in Germany’s Basic Law.
Deputy Wolfgang Zoeller of the conservative Christian Social Union, who voted against the law, said he feared it would set a standard that would lead to discrimination against disabled children.
"Parents should not have to apologise if they do not have a so-called perfect baby," he said.
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