Hastings Center News

Ravitsky on NPR: Can Doctors Test Embryos for Autism? And Should They?

A newly available kind of genetic testing, called polygenic embryo screening, promises to screen for conditions that can include cancer, obesity, autism, and bipolar disorder. What would it mean culturally if more people tried to screen out some of these conditions? And how does this connect to societal ideas about whose lives are meaningful? Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky explores these questions on NPR’s “It’s Been a Minute” this week. She expressed concern that prospective parents may reason that “if we have a new tool to select the best embryo, I’m ethically obligated to do that.“ Listen to the NPR interview.