Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis - References in Popular Culture

References in Popular Culture

  • PGD features prominently in the 1997 film Gattaca. The movie is set in a near-future world where PGD/IVF is the most common form of reproduction. In the movie parents routinely use PGD to select desirable traits for their children such as height, eye color and freedom from even the smallest of genetic predispositions to disease. The ethical consequences of PGD are explored through the story of the main character who faces discrimination because he was conceived without such methods.
  • PGD is mentioned in the 2004 novel My Sister's Keeper by the characters as the main character, Anna Fitzgerald, was created through PGD to be a genetic match for her APL positive sister Kate so that she could donate bone marrow at her birth to help Kate fight the APL. It is also mentioned in the book that her parents received criticism for the act.

Read more about this topic:  Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis

Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:

    Popular culture entered my life as Shirley Temple, who was exactly my age and wrote a letter in the newspapers telling how her mother fixed spinach for her, with lots of butter.... I was impressed by Shirley Temple as a little girl my age who had power: she could write a piece for the newspapers and have it printed in her own handwriting.
    Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)

    Like other secret lovers, many speak mockingly about popular culture to conceal their passion for it.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)

    No race has the last word on culture and on civilization. You do not know what the black man is capable of; you do not know what he is thinking and therefore you do not know what the oppressed and suppressed Negro, by virtue of his condition and circumstance, may give to the world as a surprise.
    Marcus Garvey (1887–1940)