“Was this woman right to have sons when she knew the terrible health risks they face?”
With her three young boys dashing about the garden playing football and bouncing on the trampoline, Tracy Woodward seems like any other busy mother, keeping a watchful eye as she cooks a family meal.
But she is perhaps more attentive than others might be. For a simple knock or cut — the stuff of childhood for roustabout boys — requires immediate medical treatment.
Ten-year-old Ben, Joe, seven, and Dan, five, all suffer from severe haemophilia, the bleeding disorder caused by a lack of factor VIII, a blood-clotting agent. As a result, a graze — even a bruise, if severe — can be life-threatening.
Yet the twist to this family’s story is that Ben was diagnosed with the condition when he was only one. Tracy and husband Gary then had the option of genetic testing and IVF, which could have prevented them having more children with the condition. But despite knowing the risk of passing on haemophilia was high, the couple refused.
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