I don’t find anything even borderline unethical or unsavory about asking for funds.
People have to ask for money all the time in this country in order to cover treatments. Why is this any different? It’s a necessary, life-saving procedure… not something vain or cosmetic.
From a bioethics standpoint, I can make a case about why having a child for the purpose of saving their other child is unethical but from a human standpoint I cannot fault them and wish them the best of luck.
Re: painful procedure… in many ways, it’s better for painful procedures to be done on very young children. They’re not going to remember the pain like adults would. If given the choice, I would’ve had all of my surgeries as a child so I didn’t remember them.
I’m not so sure it’s a painful procedure these days. I have a friend who provided a donation to his sister, and it was done by something akin to dialysis. No drilling into the pelvic bones.
In any case, it has long been my understanding that there is virtually no risk to the donor, barring some freak occurrence, and some temporary soreness is a negligible price to pay in exchange for a life! I don’t criticize these parents at all for making the attempt, or for trying to raise funds if they need that. I agree that their appeal would seem very odd without the genetic details, so they pretty much had to reveal them.
The problem in the Jodi Picoult novel was that the mother imposed ridiculous restrictions on the life of the younger sister “just in case.” I detested that woman, and I generally detest Picoult’s overblown novels.
My husband did a bone marrow donation (anonymous donation) about 25 years ago. At that time, they had to drill in his pelvic bone. He has a high threshold for pain and he found it to be extraordinarily painful. If this procedure is still done, then the parents should have to donate bone marrow first so they understand exactly the kind of pain they are subjecting this next child to.
Is it not possible to get bone marrow from anyone else? Not sure how all that works, but it does seem unethical to me to give birth to a donor child for this purpose, unless no other options exist. Even then, why can’t they just have a baby? Why do they want people to fund expensive IVF? Do they mean they want to genetically create the “right” child and kill any others that may be conceived. No. not ok.
But to just have another child because you really want one, sure, and if that child happens to be able to donate, great (though that seems painful!).
My youngest D was the recipient of a bone marrow transplant several years ago. We were fortunate enough that a family member was a match and could be the donor. I absolutely understand what this family is doing in order to save the life of their child. It surprises me that people can be so judgmental. I would have done anything possible to secure a donor match. Fortunately, living in Canada we didn’t have the added issue of funding it. Here is a link to some information about current protocols for bone marrow transplant, which, I hope, will clear up some of the misinformation being shared in this thread.
TranquilMind, the condition the sick child has is genetic. The mother is a carrier of this condition. IVF to make sure the new child doesn’t suffer from this condition.
I was also wondering if other family members might be a match. We’ve been through this (but for an organ, not bone marrow) The only match wouldn’t do it, as I recall.
It’s a terrible situation and definitely seems to be one of those “walk a mile in their shoes” situations where it’s best to reserve judgement. Those parents are doing what they think is best, and I hope it works out for their family.
Gee, why hadn’t they thought of that? I’m sure their very first thought when they learned the best chance for their child was a sibling was “Let’s do this the most expensive way possible!”
alwaysamom, I can’t imagine what you must have gone through. I’m so glad that you found a donor, and I hope that your daughter has recovered completely (or as completely as possible).
Romani, you missed the point. Having a baby is great. If they do, and it happens to be a match, fantastic, though whether this would occur quickly enough, who knows.
Creating a baby in a lab, discarding any and all unwanted ones that might occur before you get the perfect one, is different.
That is the point. The point was not the cost, though that would be a factor to most families.
Why can’t they just have a baby? There is a good chance the new child might suffer the same fate as the first child because the condition is genetic. They are not going to create a Frankenbaby who is a perfect match. The whole point of the exercise is to have a healthy child who can (potentially) help the older brother. They are not trying to engineer a baby with “desirable” traits such as eye color, height, etc. - they are screening out a lethal condition.
Bone marrow donation, as with many other medical procedures, has made significant progress in the last 25 years. I’ve been a registered bone marrow donor for longer than that, and have followed the changes in the procedure. There are still cases where marrow is removed from the pelvic bone, but there are also non-surgical means of harvesting marrow (which may not be appropriate for an infant, as they require marrow-stimulating injections prior to harvesting), and as a previous poster said cord blood can often be used, in which case there would be nothing removed from the infant - the transplant would be performed with blood that would typically be discarded after birth.
As long as this new baby will be wanted and loved, then while there are some ethical issues about the parents consenting for the child, I see it as entirely up to the parents and the medical team involved. If this sick child had a two-year old sibling, would that be acceptable? What about 8? 12? At what age is it OK to have a child go through such a procedure with the intent of saving a family members life?
To me, the question is how much risk there is to the donor, who cannot consent for himself. I don’t think it’s so easy to say what level of risk would be acceptable. It’s probably pretty low risk. But how low?
All I will say is, this is a very difficult topic! If the process is ok when the goal is bone marrow donation, maybe that’s ok. What if the goal was kidney donation? You can live on one kidney. What if the goal was a heart donation? What if organs or tissue are harvested from a fetus? I don’t have answers, just questions.