Next week, Barack Obama will be inaugurated as president of the United States. There will be parties, cameras, a ceremony, and a parade. The world will watch and celebrate. In politics, revolutions are clearly marked.

Social revolutions that emerge from science, however, are often overlooked. One of those revolutions is happening right now, a week before Obama’s inauguration, across the Atlantic Ocean.

“First baby tested for breast cancer form BRCA1 before conception born in UK,” says the press release from University College London. “The first baby tested preconceptionally for a genetic form of breast cancer (BRCA1) has been born.” The release quotes Paul Serhal, medical director of the hospital’s Assisted Conception Unit: “This little girl will not face the specter of developing this genetic form of breast cancer or ovarian cancer in her adult life. The parents will have been spared the risk of inflicting this disease on their daughter. The lasting legacy is the eradication of the transmission of this form of cancer that has blighted these families for generations.”

It’s happy news. But let’s take a closer look at the announcement, starting with the test “before conception.” This baby was tested as an embryo in a dish. She was one of 11 such embryos made by injecting drugs in the mother to stimulate production of excess eggs, which were then fertilized with the father’s sperm. Six of the embryos had the gene for breast cancer. Three more had “other abnormalities.” All nine were “discarded.” The other two were implanted, and one became this baby.

In sum, at least six human embryos were made and then thrown away because they failed a test. We now call such tests “preconception.” This is the next step in our gradual devaluation of embryos. First, we said IVF embryos weren’t pregnancies. That’s technically correct: Pregnancy begins when the embryo implants in the womb. Then we called early embryos “pre-embryos” so we could dismantle them to get stem cells. That was technically incorrect, but we did it because it made us feel better. Now we’re adjusting the word conception. Henceforth, testing of IVF embryos to decide which will live or die is preconception. Don’t fret about the six eggs we fertilized, rejected, and flushed in selecting this baby. They were never really conceived. In fact, they weren’t embryos. According to Serhal, each was just “an affected cluster of cells.”

Hat tip:  Branford

The entire article is available here.