The US is the only western country to restrict marriage between cousins, and even then it is in a minority of states.
Did anyone else find the interview quoted by Staggerlee preposterous? Non-deaf people are disabled because they don’t know sign language… Yeah, whatever you think.
Whilst I’m potentially all for eugenics in theory it’s the application that makes it untennable (currently, anyway). I can’t see anything wrong with a sponsored programme that allows couples to screen for potential problems and then assists them with ensuring that only healthy embryos are conceived, although I’m not sure that’s actually possible with our level of science.
I think the option of screening and aborting foetuses that are marked as having illnesses/disabilities (Downs, autism, even deafness/blindness) should be there but as a method of preventing those illnesses occuring it’s a pretty blunt instrument.
Then I agree again; given that reproduction seems to give people meaning in their lives more than any other hobby, people should generally not be disallowed from doing it.
And Illuminatiprimus, I also agree, the interview is quite absurd, a comedy sketch really. I think it would be unethical to deliberately have a deaf baby - what would be wrong with having a hearing baby and teaching it sign language? Jealousy on the part of the parents, perhaps?
But if you so no, with the exception of incest, you have already let the camel’s head into the tent. The increased risk for genetic problems in incestuous relationships pales in comparison to many cases where no government screening of DNA is needed. If a couple has a child with sickle cell anemia, they have a 25% chance of their next child having the disease (assuming they are both carriers, and don’t have the disease themselves). Why not cut them off if they do have such a child? People seem to have this idea that any child which is the product of incest is guaranteed to be some genetic monster. The increased risk of genetic defects is actually quite small.
It is also very likely* that one day we will be able to correct the trouble pre-conception. Eugenics through direct engineering, not selective breeding. Mate with whom you like so long as you both visit the gene therapist before initiating pregnancy.
*Assuming all those retarded and superstitious bans on even conducting research into human cloning and genetic engineering are repealed, that is.
I wouldn’t have a problem with it, but I think that we all ought to undergo a reversible sterilization treatment at birth. That way everyone can have all the sex they want and only have children when they good and ready.
It’s a touchy issue, but I’m part of the group that thinks that we’ve done ourselves a disservice genetically with modern medicine. For og’s sake, a kid who is allergic to light, and air and has to live in a bubble shouldn’t be breeding.
Yes, it’s preposterous - hearing has more uses than appreciating entertainment - sometimes those uses are survival-critical. Sure, non-signing people are effectively disabled in the highly artificial context of signed media, but that’s a really cherry-picking argument.
But it looks like Humphrys was debating someone of the ‘…and nothing can ever convince me otherwise…’ mindset.
And what sort of a name is ‘Tomato’, fercryinoutloud?
Again, doing this without considering the moral aspect of all of this isn’t wise.
What if most couples decide to “correct” for homosexuality, for instance. Wouldn’t this be within their rights if other choices are permitted? And if it is, wouldn’t many avail themselves of that? And what are the implications if couples are prevented from correcting for that particular trait for political reasons? The gay lobby can let its voice be known on matters like this.
Even as it stands now, there is evidence that many people are aborting solely because genetic tests indicate mental retardation - this at a time when opportunities for the retarded to lead happy productive lives have advanced considerably. The moral implications of that choice haven’t been fully examined - and they should.
Slippery slope hell - this is full blown eugenics right off the bat. And considering the dubious purposes that has been put to in the past, I’d just as soon we not revisit it.
Regardless of the ability and accommodations that we have made for special needs people, the fact remains that they are not getting the same experience that everyone else does; similar to the deaf point made above.
Just because an idea was implemented poorly does not make it a poor idea. Baby with the bathwater and all that.
While that is certainly true, there is a question of what the penalty suffered should be.
Not being permitted to be born is a steep one.
Penalty? That assumes a transgression and fault. What you have is a mistake of nature, a defective or damaged embryo that will have a severely limited experience, and be a burden upon the parents and society. Why anyone would choose to deliberately produce such an offspring is beyond me.
And what disservice does this do to you?
When an idea is repeatedly poorly implemented, that’s a sign that it’s unworkable. And eugenics hasn’t only been implemented poorly, it’s been deliberately used for horrible purposes. Of course, at the time, people felt those were good ideas and only on reflection do they seem monstrous. I’m sure that wouldn’t happen again, though.
It does a disservice to humanity in general through allowing such unfit material to continue. A person who can only exist via technology is not any less of a person, but It is immoral in my opinion to produce more such people. Medicine should be to help those who are already here, not encourage the production of more. Serious genetic conditions should be bred out of our society to strengthen it as a whole.
No one gets the same experience as someone else. Why should that be a determining factor?
It isn’t if they are going to be able to take of themselves without state assistance, or caretakers.
We’re social animals, and we’ve been supporting “unfit” members of our groups for a very long time. It’s probably a very deep-rooted human instinct- there’s not really that much difference between caring for an infant or child that can’t care for itself and caring for a group member who will never be able to care for him/herself. There’s evidence that very early people cared for members of their group that couldn’t hunt or gather food for themselves- remains of people with serious injuries who couldn’t have supplied their own food, but who lived long enough that someone must have been taking care of them, that sort of thing.
Clearly, whatever we’ve been doing as humans hasn’t been too bad for the species. Just look at the number of humans here now.
Good, because that’s most of us. I wouldn’t know what to do to find and prepare food if all technology, including agriculture, fire, and all that, were to disappear tomorrow. I suspect most of us wouldn’t.
You can draw some arbitrary line- “anyone who can’t survive without technology X shouldn’t be allowed to live”- but you do have to recognize that there’s some technology X without which most of us couldn’t live, so it’s ultimately arbitrary.
That doesn’t mean that we do not have an obligation to use our technology to limit the number of those individuals.
We could argue that success, considering a great portion of those humans live in poverty.
We aren’t talking about eliminating existing people, nor anything so ridiculous as normal everyday technologies. We are talking about aborting embryos that possess serious genetic conditions, I don’t see any logical downside to such a program. The only objections are going to be religious in nature.
And what is the effect of this disservice? What “strength” would result if it were eliminated? Do you believe that the average genetic fitness of humanity is declining, and that somehow this is a problem rather than evidence that people are no longer forced to endure the harsh conditions experience by our ancestors, which is a good thing by any sensible standard?
Medicine already encourages the production of more people by keeping more people alive.
I should think that eliminating mentally retarded embryos from the gene pool, would raise the collective intelligence by some small measure. Beyond that, if such individuals were bred out, we could phase out the social programs needed to accommodate them and spend that money somewhere else.
It’s hard to state whether the average genetic fitness is declining. Certainly not too long ago we did not see such levels of cancer, cardiac disease, severe allergies, autism etc. The problem is that it is hard to determine whether that is due to medicine allowing such people to live to an age where they are reproducing; or if it is cultural changes in lifestyle, or medicine being able to identify such conditions better. However, eliminating genetic conditions and diseases, even if it is a small gain, is still a net gain with no downside that I can see. I don’t think anyone WANTS to be born retarded, albino, a hemophiliac, or deathly allergic to light.
There are two kinds of societies - those that obsess over how they can become better and those that obsess over how they can become stronger.
I’d like to think we’re of the first kind. You don’t have to look too far in history, or even contemporary events, to find examples of the second. And I dare say you wouldn’t want to live in these places.