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.

hi riven

yes that's true, but if i was told by doctors that my child would deffo have an illness..and wouldn't live passed maybe 1 or 2, i just don't think i could go ahead....it would kill me....i know all life is sacred, but i couldn't see my child in pain everyday, knowing he or she would die on me.

i'm not strong enough.

riven, you're post made me cry.

Riven, all I was saying is that I could identify with the relief of a child who was in constant pain not having to suffer anymore. (absolutely don't agree that deafness and other disabilities are part of selection process )

My sister did have a mosiac of Edwards, but also lots and lots of other complications associated with it. I wasn't using the fact that she was in complete pain as a justification for screening, but sorry if this is how it came across.

She was on medication, but the heavy stuff was for night time, I think?

"By Hulababy on Sun 25-Jan-09 15:29:32
Maybe the best thing for this thread now is for it to reach 1000 and be stopped for good."

imo you are right, but sadly due to MN HQ stance on anti disabled threads/posts another one will start soon and again people will post offensive stuff.......

"Does someone who lives for 20 yrs not deserve to"

The answer to that is of course "Yes, he does deserve to live". Because everyone deserves to live as long as they possibly can.

However, the question is flawed, because it attacks a Straw Man argument - nobody is saying disabled people should be killed because they don't deserve to live. The question here is the screening of embryos that are days old, in blastocyst stage. That is, just a few cells stuck together.

Embryos are not people. Regardless of what you personally believe, this is how it is. Little clusters of cells don't have any rights. They are not people. They are removed at will, used in experiments and treatments, etc regardless of whether or not they have defective/undesirable genes.

So since it is OK to eliminate all embryos, what can your objection possibly be to the elimination of a subset of these embryos?

2shoes..you're my mate...but you have to stop trying to silence people that don't agree with you.

It is not really "society" deciding, is it?

Going back to the subject of this thread (if anyone can even remember it), it is the parents who are deciding to remove the curse of breast cancer genes from their descendants.

If there is ever a prenatal test for autism etc, it will again be the parents who decide to screen their own embryos.

And what is wrong with parents being "non-disableds", Riven?

Can only blind people decide not to have blind children?

I was talking with a fellow mum of a disabled child recently and we were saying that what many people don't realise-those who have never dealt with disability-is that the disability is only a small part of your child. They are many other things as well and although the disabled bit can take up a big amount of time, those of us with children like this just would not be with out them.

That is all great, and of course we love our babies whatever their shortcomings, but most people would still prefer to have a NT baby.

"non-disableds make decisions about disabled people"

No, Riven. For the last time:

This is about parents, "non-disableds" included, making decisions about their own sperm and eggs. Nobody is making decisions about people. Nobody is saying disabled people don't deserve to live or some such.

By daftpunk on Sun 25-Jan-09 17:23:47
2shoes..you're my mate...but you have to stop trying to silence people that don't agree with you.

ffs why do people insits on saying this I do not think or feel this, all I am saying is that anti disabled threads and post should be treated the say way by mn hq as racist ones.
if people want to debate fine, but it is not debating when people just resort to makeing offensive posts!!!
I would never tell you what to think DP(and you know that as we have talked about this off line in the past) but I would expect the same level of respect from you.

Well just becasue you believe life begins at conception doesn't make it so, Riven. So you also obvioulsy don't believe in a womans right to abortion.

2shoes, you are in no position to judge this thread as 'anti-disabled'. I happen to work with disabled people very often and have had many many very sophicticated discussioins with the disablity rights community. My partner works for disablity rights and with people with all kinds of imparements. Someone posing a question about the ethics of eugenics does not make them facist, or whatever. Dangerous ideas need to be discussed out in the open, because if they are not, who had the chance to reign them in when they pass a certain ethical or moral line?

Do you think ethics commitees have taboo subjects? No. They cannot afford to.

But jumping to extremely negative conclussions about people - people who you have no evidence are what you seem to think they are, soley on the basis of one encounter where you disagree, where many a time on MN you might agree - just isn't fair to them.

Disagee by all means, but give these people the courtesy of thinking them not complete maniacs until they out themselves unequivacably. Theres no such evidence on this thread.

2shoes..ffs, i've been on some threads where i've thought..omg, this lot are nuts!...but i would never try and have the thread pulled or stopped and i have never reported a post,..why?... because i believe in freedom of speech, and i am adult enough to know that not everyone thinks the same way.

i'm sorry if i've pissed you off.

Well, life precedes conception, actually.

Sperm is alive and so is the egg. When they unite, the resulting embryo is also alive.

But so are bacterias and plants.

The point is that embryos are not people, especially at blastocyt stage where they are basically several cells stuck like a ball. Hence they are used & destroyed at will much like plants.

Your insistence on confusing embryo screening with denying right to live to actual people only serves to cloud this debate.

But I don't think it is clouding the debate, Cote. I think what Riven and others are saying is that those who go down this path choose which embryos to discard, thus making a judgment which then goes on to reflect on those living with the condition, and make them feel second-best. It's like saying 'oh well, might as well screen this one for homosexuality' - how would this make homosexuals feel? It is, I think, going into deep waters of ethics that could have deep reaching effects on society and society's views on the disabled.