TOK

''Since extraction of cells from an unborn baby is an invasive procedure, there is a risk that it may harm the child or even cause a miscarriage. Doctors and parents-to-be must consider which is more important, finding out if the baby has a chromosomal anomaly or providing safe conditions for its development without any extraction of cells.''

   When we think about it; of course parents wouldn't want anything that can harm their baby but when it comes to chromosomal diseases it is necessary to take some precautionary steps. The doctor decides whether there's a ''need'' to do a karyotype but she/he cannot decide whether to do it or not because it is a huge responsibility. Parents need to decide if they should risk the baby's safeness in order to know if the baby's healthy or not. This is completely the parents' decision. The only thing a doctor can do is to say if it is necessary or not. Also it is completely parents' decision to keep the babies or abort the babies which present chromosomal anomalies.The doctor should only tell the chances and the situation. The decisions about the baby belongs to the parents.
     If I find out that my baby has some chromosomal anomalies, I wouldn't put her/him in a very different position than other healthy babies but I would know that if I give birth to that baby, it will be a hard life for him/her and for me because it is not easy to know that your child has chromosomal anomalies before she/he was born. I don't know what that feeling is like now but I think that I would give birth to him/her anyway because still she/he's my baby.

Works Cited

Damon, Alan, Randy McGonegal et al. Standard Level Biology. Pearson Baccalaureate:2007.Text.

First of all I would like to explain both of the diseases so we can get the relation well...:)

Sickle Cell Anemia:

The sickle cell mutation is a like a typographical error in the DNA code of the gene that tells the body how to make a form of hemoglobin (Hb), the oxygen-carrying molecule in our blood. Every person has two copies of the hemoglobin gene. Usually, both genes make a normal hemoglobin protein. When someone inherits two mutant copies of the hemoglobin gene, the abnormal form of the hemoglobin protein causes the red blood cells to lose oxygen and warp into a sickle shape during periods of high activity. These sickled cells become stuck in small blood vessels, causing a "crisis" of pain, fever, swelling, and tissue damage that can lead to death. This is sickle cell anemia.


Malaria:

Malaria is a potentially fatal blood disease caused by a parasite that is transmitted to human and animal hosts by the Anopheles mosquito. The human parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, is dangerous not only be cause it digests the red blood cell's hemoglobin, but also because it changes the adhesive properties of the cell it inhabits. This change in turn causes the cell to stick to the walls of blood vessels. It becomes especially dangerous when the infected blood cells stick to the capillaries in the brain, obstructing blood flow, a condition called cerebral malaria. Scientists using the x-ray microscope are hoping to learn more about the how the parasite infects and disrupts the blood cells and the blood vessels of an infected host.

So these diseases have a special relationship between them. They don't actually 'cause' each other but if a person's cells inherit a sickle cell gene this makes him resistant for the malaria disease ;it is an advantageous position. So the relation between sickle cell anemia and malaria is an example of correlation without causation. One copy of the gene is beneficial. If a person has one copy of the gene their offspring has a %50 chance of receiving a one copy of the gene and become lucky.However these carriers are naturally selected. 


Work Cited


http://www.buzzle.com/articles/sickle-cell-and-malaria.html.Web.Feb 12,2012
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/2/l_012_02.html. Web. Feb 12,2012
http://www.lbl.gov/MicroWorlds/xfiles/malariawhatis.html Web. Feb 12, 2012