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.

well, let's just get rid of the lot of us - dh and I shouldn't have been able to breed - I'm fat and he had chronic acne as a child so the chances of us breeding a fat kid with acne are too high. Also I have pcos and funny feet - and have bred a disabled kid . Too sickened to go on really.

Are you comparing breast cancer with acne?

Really?

do a search on our "new to chat" poster and you will find she has been round a while.

no, you don't tell someone to fuck off and die.

It's not her opinion btw, what she said is not an opinion, it's an 'order'.

Opinions are ok in the main, depending on how they're voiced. What MI said was highly unpleasant and uncalled for.

The op was highly unpleasant and uncalled for though.....

My family have a very high occurence of cancer. I am more likely than most as are my sisters to develop cancer at some stage. I am screened regularly and have had cautery to the cervix a couple of times to remove pre cancerous cells.

My daughter is also, as a result of being my child likely to develop cancer at some point. So, if we subscribed to the genetic screening school of thought then most of my family would have been terminated.

As it stands, my grandfather died of cancer last yr, my uncle has months left if he is lucky as he has bowel cancer. My aunt is in the early stages of bowel cancer.
My other grandfather has skin cancer as does my maternal grandmother.
Of my ancestors, there is a high incidence of breast, bowel and skin cancer.

I would not have wanted to miss out on the privelidge of getting to know any one of those people. They have all contributed large amounts of time, effort and positivity to their local communities and the world would have been a duller place without them.

Genetic screening, as others have said, does not offer a cure. It simply offers termination.
A large proportion of my family will be genetically predisposed to a form of cancer. So far none of us have agreed to any screening. (we are a huge family by the way.)

Experiment completed. I will extract subject RosieGloe. Genetic screening test completed and results disappointing - inability to process simple rational discussion of wider population evident. bbee[ beep/ until next time

but cote......we, as a human race, have evolved over millenia NATURALLY......not as a result of being 'tweaked' artificially.

how on earth do we know that this tweaking (or indeed call it what it is.....eradication of certain genes) will not in fact give us an unexepected reaction???

you say that the law concerns nature.......what are we if not part of nature?

So kittywise the OP's idea of eradicating any SN babies is called for, ah? By the way, my post was not an order, more of a suggestion, with an obvious spelling error so as not to cause immediate and obvious offense - that's how we usually do it on here .....

theobserver - the purpose of OP was not to process a 'rational' discussion me thinks

What kind of reaction do you think nature will give if and when breast cancer gene is eradicated?

I think you missed this when I last said it: Most of the human race already doesn't have this gene, so it's not as if we are changing an elemental trait in humanity.

MI you know that's disingenuous. Shouting/swearing at OP just lowered the tone even further.

Nobody is saying anything was called for.

missionimpossible - How stupid do you think people are, that they won't be offended when you say "Feck" because you misspelled "Fuck"?

well........whatif one perosn has two different genes for cancer....one being for breat cancer, one being for pancriatic{sp?} cancer...........the breast cancer gene being the most prevelent and obvious to genetisists, and so they rid the baby of the breat cancer gene.

now, because the breast cancer gene is 'stronger', the pancriatic cancer one has never actually been triggered..........but now the breast cancer one has gone it will be........and so that develops instead.

now, AFAIK from reading about said cancers, breast cancer is more curable than pancriatic cancer.....which therefore means that now, instead of developing breast cancer and having a chance of a cure, you instead develop pancriatic cancer and die hidiously from that instead as the cure is less likely (if at all).

just for eg obviously.......but life is a bitch and I think it could possibly happen!!!

of course, this may be complete bollox on my part here, so please don;t take any of what I said as anything deeper than me rambling

There would be no missing 'out on the privelidge of getting to know any one of those people' as Idrankthechristmasspirits said. The people I am talking about are the people of the future, to whom we have not yet formed attachments, or developed any feelings for at all.

I have experienced cancer, whether first or second hand I don't want to discuss, particulary on a thread as antagonistic as this, and I still want to support any medical advance that can eradicate any forms of it (and subsequently all other diseases too). Saying so does not mean I wish that I, or any person alive that I love or don't even know, had been born. Just that I wouldn't want this to happen again if I could prevent it.

I included disabilities because the article (in "THE GUARDIAN" that sparked my OP) mentioned deaf and blind parents who had voiced a desire that they would ensure their children would also be deaf and blind if they could intervene.

I have not actually been implanted by theobserver and am not about to be extracted (although the idea is tempting).

petrovia It depends what you find offensive .... I was giving a deserved response to what I considered a sick and bogus post. Now, I'm really worried that they may be 'real' !

Actually, I was very calm when I wrote it and was not 'shouting'. Also, I don't think the 'tone' could have gotten any lower than the OP.

urghhhh I mean I have experienced cancer, whether first or second hand I don't want to discuss, particulary on a thread as antagonistic as this, and I still want to support any medical advance that can eradicate any forms of it (and subsequently all other diseases too). Saying so does not mean I wish that I, or any person alive that I love or don't even know, hadn't been born. Just that I wouldn't want this to happen again if I could prevent it.

MI my issue wasn't your original post but your post addressing Kitty.

I understand the sentiment of the original post.

Btw caps is considered shouting on most forums (that's how we do things here )

Cote, evolution is the result of all the genes in a gene pool, not the genes that are only held by the majority.

For example, most people don't have the gene for sickle cell. One of the reason why sickle cell gene has evolved is that it protects the carrier from malaria. If malaria drugs stopped working (evolution of malaria develops resistance) and the world heats up so that malaria is everywhere, then potentially only the sickle cell carriers survive.

A lot of evolution has happened because of genes only inherited by a minority. At one point there were no eyes, but a minority got the relevant gene, and the genes that existed in the run up to eyes spread to the majority, because they were advantageous. (bit of a simplification but you see what I mean)

SO we keep a diverse range of genes, because we don't fully understand any of them, or what advantages or disadvantages they may have in unknown future scenarios.

For the same reasons we need variety across the globe in lung functions, pigmentation, nose shape. These serve functions. White people are more prone to skin cancer, but that same potential makes them less prone to vitamin d deficiencies in cold climates. Do you want to eradiacte white genes to reduce skin cancer deaths or some other ethnic groups who have sickle cell?

psychomum - All that does sound like "complete bollox". Sorry.

rosieglo on Mon 19-Jan-09 14:25:54
"There would be no missing 'out on the privelidge of getting to know any one of those people' as Idrankthechristmasspirits said. The people I am talking about are the people of the future, to whom we have not yet formed attachments, or developed any feelings for at all.

I have experienced cancer, whether first or second hand I don't want to discuss, particulary on a thread as antagonistic as this, and I still want to support any medical advance that can eradicate any forms of it (and subsequently all other diseases too). Saying so does not mean I wish that I, or any person alive that I love or don't even know, had been born. Just that I wouldn't want this to happen again if I could prevent it."

But you haven't explained how it would work?

Are you talking about screening potential mothers and advising those carrying the genes not to have babies?
-and if so, do you realise that people already know when they have cancer in the family and they still choose to have babies

Or are you suggesting screening foetuses in the womb?
-and if so, how do you imagine screening would get rid of the gene? Screening means looking for something, not making it go away.
(other than by aborting the foetus)

"I'm thinking that breeding out illness and disabilty is a great thing. "

I have Asperger syndrome. So does my husband. It has both benefits and problems. I can see things in more detail than other people can. I can hear things in more detail than other people can. I can feel differences in texture that others cannot, smell things in detail that others cannot. I can concentrate for 18 hours at a time on a favourite subject, day after day, week after week. I'm a married mum, a business owner, an autism adviser. I'm no burden to society or to anyone else. It has given me insights that others don't have.

Yet yes, the disability has also caused me great problems. People have bullied me mercilessly for my lack of social understanding, I'm unable to cope with noisy crowds, I cannot hear voices against background noise, I can't cope with flickering lights...etc

Do I think that people like me should be not allowed to live? No. Do I think this disability is one that needs to be eliminated because some people with it are worse off than me? No. I think we need to help, support and treat those that need it and ask for it, not eliminate people from a future society just in case they're different.

No, I agree with PM. If you mess with things there will always be consequences. The law of nature does not stop at physics.

MI, we differ in that I don't think it's ever ok to tell someone to fuck off and die.
I can't ever imagine myself justifying saying that to anyone. What's the point in saying 'feck' it means fuck.

petrovia ah yes the caps thing .... missed that. Apologies if I have offended anyone by expressing upset over OP - genuinely thought it was not 'real'. And, Kitty you are quite right, it was uncalled for and I'm sorry for that too.

Cross posts MI

Aw, you're quite sweet really aren't you?

Can we just all ask Rosieglo how she thinks you can use screening to eradicate disease without actually eradicating individual foetuses.