MORAL IMPLICATIONS ABOUND IN TEST-TUBE CASE

"In the first known case of its kind," said The Associated Press story, "a Colorado couple created a test-tube baby who was genetically screened and selected in the hope he could save the life of his 6-year-old sister." The ailing sister has a rare genetic disease that prevents her body from making bone marrow. Last week, doctors gave her an infusion of umbilical-cord blood from her newborn brother, Adam, to try to correct the disease.

Screening laboratory-created embryos for genetic diseases before implanting them isn't new. But this is the first known instance in which parents screened and selected an embryo in order to find a suitable tissue donor for an ailing sibling.

Anyone who slights the moral implications at stake here hasn't given the subject sufficient thought. The idea that parents would go sifting through embryos, choosing one and discarding many others, can only be a morally weighty exercise. And it should be accompanied by much reflection, prayer and clerical counseling.

It is still more evidence, such as the emergence of RU-486, that our technologies are racing ahead, ushering us into situations and circumstances for which we haven't even begun to think through the implications. Let's hope whatever choices are made are ones that reflect this sort of careful thought and counseling. These are pretty important decisions to get right.