a new super race?

[rosieglo]

Re the article in the guardian about the baby that was successfully screened for the breast cancer gene and the controversy about 'designer babies' - what's the fuss? I'm thinking that breeding out illness and disabilty is a great thing. Improving intelligence also; hopefully the smarter the future generations are the more likely they will find ways to halt our destruction of the planet and stop fighting. What's wrong with wanting fitter, stronger, cleverer and healthier children? And I think it is so wrong for a deaf or blind parent to actively seek out a way to pass their disability on, I cannot begin to understand how they could want to deprive their child of the ability to hear music or see the world around them.
hmmn - for me it's a pretty straight forward matter.

Yes, but not to assume suffering when there isn't any

I feel much more comfortable with selective abortion (which is the status quo) than with genetic engineering.

Dh/DS and my Dad all have hearing loss.....they do not suffer.

I would prefer not to need reading glasses now that I'm older. If there were any means including genetic engineering to remove that need in people as they get older etc or reduce our propensity to dementia etc so much the better.

There is genetic engineering in evolution. It's nothing new. Survival of the fittest etc. it's why we rule the planet not the Neanderthals. It's why people are taller as they get better fed. To avoid problems we don't marry our first cousins unless we're from rural pakistan. We do it all the time - pick healthy partners to breed with rather than the 90 year old in the OAP home.

But the very real choices we make when choosing a breeding partner are subconscious and we still don't know much about them. Do we really want to go fiddling around in a petri dish with eggs and sperm when we don't even understand why we fall for a particular other human to mate with?

One problem I still see is that any one gene seldom comes complete with one specific set of suffering that is going to be the same for every individual. I imagine the hypermobile gene that put my dd in a wheelchair for years was the same gene as led to her greatgrandmother's success on the stage. You couldn't possibly look in a petri dish and foretell exactly where that gene was going to lead the individual baby. If it had been eradicated, then a lot of positives would have gone with it.

I wouldn't be surprised if Amber doesn't feel that there are positives with her Aspergers gene which the world would be the poorer without. And from what I know of Amber, I'd agree with her.

Subconscious choices of mates are one thing. Not every individual is going to make the same subconscious choice for a start. Pace Xenia, not everybody is going to be attracted to the wealthiest, tallest, most outwardly successful mate. So that still leaves mankind with a variety of different genes surviving for many generations, long enough for real genetic advantages to become apparent.

If you start a deliberate campaign of "the world will be better without these genes" then that risks eradicating certain traits in a very quick time, often before we realise how many different outcomes can be contained in one gene. It will narrow the gene pool. It may be desirable for (or desired by) certain families, but on a large scale I doubt it is desirable for mankind.

I shall tell you of those adults I know with an ASD...the man who uses his brain's amazing ability to focus to be a world expert in his field, the lady whose mind allows her to see mathematical possibilities faster than anyone else, the man whose artistic abilities relating to autism allows him to draw the most incredible things, the lady whose visual skills allow her to design and manipulate in her mind the most complicated machinery, without ever having to draw it out, and she's better at getting it to work than anyone with a drawing board. Then there's the lady whose visualisations taught me all I know about the beauty of the world in autumn, just by leading me around a garden to point out all the things I'd never seen before.

Then there's the man whose skills allow him to do work in caring for those bereaved without it badly affecting him, and the person working in child protection who can stay calm when no-one else can because she's able to be that bit more detached, more rational, and yet also know what needs to be said and done. The list is endless - whether people with low IQs or high, whether a dx of autism or AS. In most of us there is something remarkable. Sometimes not something obvious or money-making, but it's in there.

Would I want us to lose it so that other people can feel better about cleaning up the gene pool (in their view)? No.

Just better help and treatment and accommodations and financial support, please.

Great. So we really have regressed to the 30's. First the depression, and now eugenics is back on the agenda. Anyone remember what came next?

Why is it so difficult to understand that nobody is proposing "killing disabled people"?

They are if your beliefs are such that you think life begins at conception, though.

And to be fair Riven was answering the question from IorekByrnison who asked what came next. That was indeed the sequence, with plenty of emphasis on costs to society of there being people with disabilities. We've had to fight so hard for so long for even the smallest rights so far...and all this genetic testing stuff has the potential to destroy every bit of the good work. I'm not saying it will, I'm saying it has the potential to if we're not mindful of its boundaries.

amber - What you say is fascinating. Have you read "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time"? Is being a "visual aspie" like the the boy in this book seeing the word 'Christopher' as his father calls his name?

Let me explain at this point why I am asking all these questions - I have a "borderline Asperger's Syndrome" diagnosis, after a rather informal assessment done as an adult. The "borderline" bit is because I have learned by now the optimal behaviour/actions/words in social situations, can chit-chat, what not to say, how to say things so as not to piss people off. I first heard & read about AS in my late 20s and finally found an answer to why I think different. To go back to our initial point of disagreement - no, I don't see it as a disability at all, but a different 'software' in the brain, a better one in some ways.

I am fascinated by you saying not only that you believe in God (in itself rare in the AS world) but that you are Christian, meaning that you believe in the myths of Christianity with no proof other than hearsay. Chinese whispers, even. How do you do this?

It is also surprising to me that you say you "have faith" but then say you don't understand what "faith" means. We tend to be very literal and usually don't attribute abstract concepts to ourselves that we don't understand. For example, I don't really understand "empathy" and have never said "I empathise" in my life.

I think you are unique

Especially this last bit:

"My faith is built around things, people, actions, rules and practices. And around the beauty of the world around me and the caring of the people around me. I can reason that the universe is simply far too complicated to have created itself, and two thirds of the people on the planet believe that God exists in some form. That's a lot of people to all be deluded or mistaken. It's not the same as direct proof that God exists, but it is a rational belief."

That is not a "rational belief" at all! Human history is full of mass delusions - at one time, 99.9% of all people on the planet thought the Earth was flat so it is quite possible for 2/3 of humanity to be wrong.

The universe is indeed complicated and it might turn out that there was a single conscious entity who created it. But how do you go from "There is probably a God because universe is too complicated" to believing in all sorts of things just because the Church tells you so?

Cote, I'm very sorry but I'm too tired and too worn out right now

Whenever you feel like it, then. I will be keeping an eye on this thread & hoping you continue this conversation.

I find it equally staggering that people think I should want more deaf people born., If we can eradicate deafnes, blindness, disabilities etc etc idealyl without abortion but via genetics which is the natural cycle anyway and which is how we continue to develop anyway through evolution, why we're still getting taller, still changing as the human race constantly "improves" I don't see why that's regarded as arrogance. Yes I'm saying we are better off if people aren't deaf or disabled. I imagine most of those in wheel chairs would rather they weren't. I think it's equally staggering anyone thinks any differently. This is not to say we shoudl abort children with teh wrong genes nor destroy the disabled but if we can procure they are never created then that's a good.

The genetic testing won't destroy gains obtained for the disabled. If there are many meny fewer disabled we will have the resources to look after thoat there are so much better. The disabled will gain. Or is your argument you would like saty 80% of people to be blind or deaf so that blindness and deafness becomes the norm (just as obesity sadly is becoming the norm) and therefore not regarded as so different if everyone had it?

'If there are many meny fewer disabled we will have the resources to look after thoat there are so much better. The disabled will gain.'

I 100% disagree that this would be the case. If disabled individuals ever become so few (the majority of their like having already been destroyed or prevented from existing), then the sympathy towards any remaining disabled individuals would be zero. Why? Because if you have a cultural mindset that disability if undesirable from the start (or even before the start), then it simply does not follow that there would be a concurrent mindset that would want to help disability in life. One mindset precludes the other.

I've actually seen this argument used in the context of Deaf Culture. It was pointed out that if operations and/or implants allowed deaf people to interact easily with the hearing then the clubs would gradually empty leaving those who couldn't or wouldn't accept treatment with fewer companions. This was put forward as a reason for opposing research into finding cures for deafness.

It follows that to improve the lot of people with a disability we need more children to be born with a disablity not less. This would be easier to arrange if everyone agrees it's desirable.

"if you have a cultural mindset that disability if undesirable from the start"

Is there any doubt that disability is indeed undesirable?

How many people poke out their own eyes so they can be blind? Stick things in their ears to try to be deaf? Cut their own arms, legs, or hands?

My God, there are some unpalateable notions on this thread.

If some of you find childhood disability so inconvenient that it should be genetically phased out, than God help you should your mother get Alzheimers, or your father suffer a stroke, of your child suffer brain damage in a road traffic accident, or you husband become clinically depressed, or your daughter self-harms, or your eldest sons takes drugs ....

Life, my friends, in all its forms, is what we all signed up for the minute we took our first breath.

'Is there any doubt that disability is indeed undesirable?'

Well, I guess if you've been following the thread, then the answer to that depends on who you're asking.

Very well said, desi

Thanks, Iorek

What some of you are actually implying is that disability suggests some sort of corruption, whether it be a genetic corruption, or something deeper. Who knows what some of you weirdos actually believe, if you're honest.

Your viewpoint completely disregards the vast majority of people born without disability, who manage quite ably to make a complete fucking hash of their lives, whilst taking a few others down with them at the same time. If you want a super race, fuck off to the golf club and take your plus-fours with you.

I find this attitude quite appalling .. the very idea that you wouldn't have a child because he might be blind or deaf suggests that there's not much going on in your particular hinterland. At best, it shows a staggering lack of insight into the human condition.

At worst, it shows .. a staggering lack of insight into the human condition.

Cote - I'm another Christian with AS. Its not as rare as you might think...

Xenia on Thu 22-Jan-09 19:09:51
"I imagine most of those in wheel chairs would rather they weren't. I think it's equally staggering anyone thinks any differently. This is not to say we shoudl abort children with teh wrong genes nor destroy the disabled but if we can procure they are never created then that's a good."

It is possible that there exists a deaf gene that carries no other advantage, and only deafness. But with many other genetic conditions this is not the case. Aspergers may involve both pluses and minuses, as Amber pointed out previously- if we take out the ones we'll lost the others. Hypermobility may lead to a life in a wheelchair- or on the stage. No knowing.