2016 Volume 26 Issue 1 Pages 63-71
Since the German parliament passed its Embryo Protection Act in 1990, the interpretation of the law has been that preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is prohibited in Germany. However, since 2006, a gynecologist in Berlin has been performing PGD on blastocysts derived from infertile couples who voluntarily underwent the process. The Federal Court of Justice decided in 2010 that the Embryo Protection Act could not be applied in such cases. Heated public arguments reemerged followed this judgment, and the parliament revised the act in 2011 to partially admit PGD. This paper investigates the opinion of the German Ethics Council, as provided in 2011, which summarized many discussions that had a great influence in the course of the legal revision.
The study focuses on the emotional and existential conflicts of genetically burdened couples. The German Ethics Council discussed the controversy between the positions pro and contra PGD, but both positions commonly acknowledge the seriousness of the suffering of such couples. On the one hand, the council members who approved the ban on PGD claim that a PGD cannot decrease the troubles of these couples, because the technique itself brings about physical and mental agony Moreover, society cannot stop the escalation of the permitted extent of PGD. On the other hand, members who support restricted permission claim that legal limits of permitted PGD are practicable, and genetically burdened couples have no other way than PGD to solve their problems. This paper points out that German society is still divided on this problem, but it is under standable why the latter position is persuasive “restricted” permission to perform PGD.
