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.

rosieglo -- trying again, as I didn't get an answer to my previous question

"my point is that if in the future we could screen for illnesses or disabilties she could still have been born but without the pain."

But HOW? The case you referred to initially is about screening embryos for a condition and discarding those that screen positive. This sort of screening wouldn't, couldn't, result in cory's DD being born but without the pain. It could only result in her not being born at all but some other child's being born instead.

If you aren't talking about that kind of embryo screening, then you need to make that clear. Because, what with that being the only approach you referenced, it sounds as though that is what you are talking about.

I wouldn't say Asperger's Syndrome is something to be eradicated from the human gene pool. Certainly not comparable to genetically transmitted breast cancer, which OP was about.

Yeah, like what natural consequences will there be if we eradicate the breast cancer gene?

We eradicated smallpox. What exactly was the "natural consequence"?

Answer: Nothing.

Milly - You appear to be replying to something I said, but it is not clear to me what you were objecting to, at least in the first part of your post.

Cory I am asking that if you wanted to have another child, and were given the option to choose whether or not that child would go through the same pain as your daughter, would you take the option that eradicated that possibility?

Amber - If genetic medicine became so advanced, would you not perhaps wish to pass on all the advantages and none of the disadvatages? If you had the choice?

Amber I do not, and at no point in this thread have suggested that 'people like you' as you put it, should not be allowed to live.

Being different isn't only about having an illness or being disabled. It is the individual that is different.

I am talking about the future not the present, as per the article in the guardian newspaper.

am wondering how many people have read the article?

I have just read the article, rosieglo. And the baby was conceived by IVF, with 6 embryos, discarding the ones found to carry the breast cancer gene. That's never going to be a viable way to produce the majority of the population. And most of us probably do carry some faulty gene or other.

To eradicate illnesses and disabilities in this way, we would need some way of preventing people from becoming pregnant by...you know...bonking. And that might prove hard.

Nobody has said the whole human race should have IVF for reproduction. Nobody has said we should try to eradicate all disease, let alone all "faulty genes".

Don't attack the straw man.

Rosieglo suggested that this would be a good idea:

"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?"

I asked how she envisaged this being achieved and she referred me to the Guardian article where an embryo free from the cancer gene was produced through IVF.

So yes, Cote ds'Azur, somebody is suggesting it. Rosieglo specifically said breeding out illness and disability is a great thing. She seems to suggest illness and disability in general, rather than in some very limited case. She admits that the only way this can be done (short of aborting actual foetuses from the mother's womb) is by IVF and embryo screening. She mentioned my own case as one where this would have led to a happier result.

And she also wants breeding to produce more intelligent human beings. Though how we measure, or indeed test an embryo for, intelligence is anybody's guess.

Cote..........thought it would sound like that.

ho hum

By kittywise on Mon 19-Jan-09 13:47:32
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.

oh dear so what MI said is unpleasent, have your read the OP on this thread?

I find it quite odd that everyone is so keen to get rid of severely autistic people but keep the high functioning ones.

Why is that? Because they're more likely to pay taxes (actually that's not necessarily true many with AS struggle to hold down a job, any job)?

I suspect it's because people cannot understand that there's value in a life with severe autism and learning difficulties. Which is a shame and rather demonstrates how far we have to go as a society.

First post:
"I'm thinking that breeding out illness and disabilty is a great thing"

Later post: "Amber I do not, and at no point in this thread have suggested that 'people like you' as you put it, should not be allowed to live."

What did you mean, then? How would people like me in the future be 'bred out' and yet be allowed to live?

If there were a choice to take away just the worst bits of the disability, would I like that? I've no idea. None at all. What would make a huge, huge difference is the other people in society not causing us immeasurable problems by refusing to allow us to have an environment we can cope with. We can manage that right now. But we don't. Instead, some people are calculating how to eliminate us.

The testing that simply says yes/no for autism might be only 5 years away. At that point, the chances of people like me making it into the world become very significantly reduced. The quality of life for the rest who are allowed to be born won't be a jot different. Is this a huge step forwards for humankind? No. Not unless we have a test that can find only those individuals who have a very very high probability of a dreadful quality of life.

I know plenty of non-disabled people with an appalling quality of life. I know plenty of people with illness or disability who would rate their quality of life as being very worthwhile.

We need to be very, very wary of judging people on whether they have a disability.

But Cote with respect you don't know exactly what the result of eradicating smallpox was/is. For all we know it could have had a subtle effect on something else - nothing is without effect you know.

Love the term TABs. That is so true.

Anyway has someone mentioned regression to the mean yet?

what is the definition of a disability tho????

what MY definition would be is completely different to what rivens would be, and then we would both have different views on it to peachy, amber, 2shoes etc etc ad infinitum.

no one person alive is that perfect enough to make a definitive cut off point surely.

genuine questions, as I really don;t know.......every one person alive must have some tyoe of disability. I mean, the OP is not able to see where in her OP she has been offencive, so surely she too is disabled in some way, especially in common sense and decency

So why exactly do you want us to worry about some "reaction" from nature if we can't even notice it?

Either there is no such reaction or it is so small and insignificant as to be completely ignored.

and I seem to have issue with spelling!

rosieglo on Mon 19-Jan-09 15:03:49
"Cory I am asking that if you wanted to have another child, and were given the option to choose whether or not that child would go through the same pain as your daughter, would you take the option that eradicated that possibility?"

You know, I am not sure. There are days when I think so, perhaps, but then dd's obvious emotional intelligence is no doubt to do with her unique genetic make-up- and with her experience of suffering. And that makes it possible for her to prop up her friend who was genetically fine but has been hit by one of life's unforeseen disasters. So the world is gaining.

Cote

I was disagreeing with this comment:

'Besides, if genetically transmitted cancer were to disappear from the gene pool tomorrow, nature wouldn't even notice it because most people don't have this gene anyway. '

i believe nature would notice, in the form of potential evolutionary pathways.

I am saying that it would make a difference to the future of our species if we eradicate certain genes from the gene pool, and we cannot be certain that those genes are not advantageous or that those embryos that are being eradicated may hold specific advantageous genes that are linked to the disadvantageous genes.

What is fitter in our current environment is not fitter in all future possible environments, so genetic diversity in a population is useful.

97 out of every 100 people will have a disability by the time they die. So, only 97 out of 100 embryos need to be eliminated! Then, of course, the other 3 out of 100 will be all there is. Supposing some of them are less fast, less amazing? They'll be the New Disabled People and they'll have to be eliminated next. And so on.

Will the last one left please turn out the lights?

amber - I know it is fashionable to call Asperger's Syndrome a "disability" these days, but surely you realize that difficulty in deciphering social situations & facial expressions is not the same ball game as severe autism where a person sits and bangs his head against the all all day. Those two are on the same spectrum like a bruise and a crushed bone are on the same spectrum of a blow to the body.