The birth of a "saviour sibling": an ethico-legal appraisal

Abstract

It is every normal parent’s wish to have a happy child free of ailments and suffering. However, not all children are born free of diseases and suffering. Some are born with severe disabilities and others are born with congenital genetic problems that have less chances of cure or no cure at all. These unfortunate circumstances make parents of such children with severe medical conditions desperate and devastated to the extent that they try anything possible in attempting to improve quality of life of their sick children. No parent wants to see his or her child suffering. However, a more pressing situation is when parents decide to have a second child whose purpose is to save the life of the sick first child by donating stem cells from cord blood or bone marrow. This second child is sometimes referred to as the “Saviour sibling” and is born for the purpose of saving the life of the sick older child of the family. ‘Saviour sibling is the media name for a child who is conceived, gestated, and delivered in order to provide umbilical cord blood, or, even more contentious, bone marrow desperately needed by the parents’ older child’ (Mills 2005:2).Because there is no matching donor for the ill older child, a donor is created in the form of a second sibling, whose match is genetically guaranteed by IVF, preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), and tissue typing (Boyle and Savulescu 2001). Given that children are already being created in other Countries such as the United States of America, France and Britain for the above-mentioned purpose, this research report will attempt to engage in the debate surrounding saviour siblings, the use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) in creating these children, and the possibility of this technology being abused and misused for gender selection. Taking this into consideration, this research report will attempt to highlight what the South African laws and policies say about saviour siblings. Should parents with pressing issues as mentioned-above demand to have a “saviour child” of their own for the purpose of using him or her to save the life of another of their children in South Africa, on which grounds would it be rejected or accepted?