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.

madhair - Riven gave that "but it would make disabled people feel bad" argument before. Surely that isn't a good enough reason to continue bringing into the world disabilities that we can prevent - that otherwise some people will feel bad. A question I asked her but she didn't respond to.

Well, aside from a general problem of understanding other people's feelings, you mean? I care as much about disabled people's feelings as anyone else's.

The question is whether I think feelings of a group of people (any group of people) is a good enough reason to prevent screening of embryos to bring to world healthy babies free of preventable disabilities and genetically transmitted diseases.

And the answer is "No". Nobody's feelings matter that much.

If screening meant that the embryo screened could have a painful illness identified and then cured to bring a healthy and painfree baby to full term I would agree with you Cote. However, screening is not about helping those embryos - it is about singling out and eliminating ones that do not fit with a preconceived view of being "acceptably healthy". That is my problem with the type of screening being discussed. It is not about bringing healthy babies into the world - it is about stopping babies some babies entering the world that do not fit with a preconceived view of being "healthy"

I understand what you're saying, Cote, but think that it goes deeper than 'it will hurt a few people's feelings'. There's a whole possible shift in society's attitude to those who are disabled - ie if CF sufferers are disposed of at the embryonic stage, what this says to the world at large about CF sufferers, not just what the CF sufferers themselves feel. It's about making value judgments on quality of life, often made with no thought or expertise. I have a twin disease to CF and yes, would love not too. But I am still a valuable member of society - however, it'snot how I feel that counts, it's about attitudes into society. Where would it all stop? If a disease is ruled as worth discarding early life over, when does the funding for that disease lessen, as the thinking changes? It chills me.

So you agree with screening embryos for breast cancer genes, which was the subject of the article referred to in OP?

oops sorry about the grammatical errors in that post, it's all those meds that society has to pay for, what a drain

Actually Cote I'm afraid I don't agree. Much as I sympathise with the family and the devastating effect of generations of women dying from this horrible disease, I do not think that disposing of embryos with it can be justified. This is still saying that if the person is going to die young what is the point of them living. And that is wrong.

Breast cancer is not a painful enough disease?

Oh I just realized you want the disease removed from the embryo so that the same embryo can grow into a healthy baby. Because you think the couple of cells stuck together just days after fertilisation is a "person" and shouldn't be "killed", I presume.

But this is not an abortion debate. As I said to Riven, this is a world where no embryo has a right to life, so it is a bit rich to be offended that those with disease genes will have no right to life.

Do you understand what I mean?

I have no idea what you are trying to say tome Riven sorry. I think you should dmaybe just take a breath. I haven;t seen anyone on here is saying disabled people are invalid or shouldn't exist. If there were any, you could be sure most of the people you are arguing with would be down their throats.

People are just arguing diffrent positions. Trying to see the wood for the trees

if my mum was screened for breast cancer i and my three other sister and their children wouldn't be here.

"we support women's right to choose with respect to their pregnancies. However, we deplore the context in which these choices are made."

Well I'm sorry but you can't have it both ways. By that light, its deplorable to abort a child if the cost (fiscal and emotional) of any putative disablity on the family has been weighed up and thought too much, but not deplorable if she just couldn't afford another child in pound and pence. Sorry. Women make fucking hard decisions. All groups fighting for 'freedoms' should always beware of dictaing that others lose freedom in order for them to gain it.

madhairjanuary, yes you are a valuable member of society. But who is to say any fetus aborted wouldn't become a valuable member of society. The dead and unborn always outnumber the living. I really don;t understand the logic that would make you, a person born, identify with someone unborn. Are the only 'worthy' unborn those who were aborted for some possible disablity?

And more importantly, if it isn't their choice, whose should it be?

The parents choice, I mean

I really do not buy the line that they support the woman's right to choose.
Cos let's say that Disabled people were fully valued mambers of society, that funding and support were coming out of our ears, that no parent need ever be concerned with what will ahppen after they've died.
What if in that context some women still decided to abort when they discovered a disability...would they support the women's right ot choose?
I don't think so because this is a pro life stance. It can never be squared with the woman's right to choose.

Cote, I have not anywhere said that breast cancer isn't painful enough, why the hell would I think that? My disease can be incredibly painful, does that mean I would have been better off being disposed of??
I really don't want to go down the abortion debate route here. Yes I believe life begins at conception, but I'm talking about a societical shift in attitude, not a few hurt feelings or right to life, that's a different debate. Begininng to sympathise with Riven's brick wall here.
Monkeytrousers, not sure what you are saying, are you saying that I think the only worthy unborn are those with disabilities? Not sure how this would have come across.
Of course I am unable to empathise with an embryo, it doesn't stop me having views about life and about the road we are going down in this case. I am worried about the way attitudes towards people with certain conditions are changing and how rather than being valued they can be thought of as lesser, even not consciously. So my view on beginnings of life are not what I am discussing here.

What constitues a 'wanted' baby Riven. And where is it written than people cannot change their minds?

I didn't describe any kind of society. What kind of society do you think would force a woman to give birth to an unwanted child? Because even if a woman begins by wanting a child, by the time she has weighted up the pros and cons, agonised over the decision, thought of the cost to her children alrweady born, her realtionship, her life plan, she has made the decision that the cost is too much and the most moral and ehtical thing to do to minimise suffering for all involved is to terminate.

I do not begrudge any woman that right. It is her choice. No body elses.

Yo answered my question MHJ by saying you think life begins at conception. Whatever gets you through the night. I don;t begrudge you that either. It's the prescritive element tacit in all these discussions about what society should be and how people ought to behave. The disablity rights movements came out of the feminist and civil rights movements. Its kind of iroinic that some in there are now are okay with taking away the right of abortion - the cornerstone of the women's movement.