What about when family history threatens offspring?

A recent story on MSNBC told of Patrick Tracey, whose family has a history of acute schizophrenia. The disease ultimately took his older sisters, his mother, and his grandmother. Unwilling to risk passing the disease onto his offspring, Tracey has decided not to have children of his own. This story raises an important question: in the face of irrefutable evidence that your family carries a deadly or harmful disease from one generation to another, would you forego passing on your genes?

Personally, I see my children as central to my life. It would be hard to imagine life and fulfillment without them. But, loving my children like I do, I don’t know if I would want them to suffer if I could help it.

What would you do? Would you go ahead and have children, hoping that either the ovarian lottery would pass them by or that your family would somehow cope with their disorder? Or would you decide the risk was too great?