You are conflating eliminating embryos with ethnic cleansing and I don’t appreciate the comparison. I have never once stated that such people who are here, are less a person than the average joe, nor that they should be killed. You’ll remember that I suggested that everyone should undergo a reversible sterilization to prevent unplanned pregnancies.
Yes. For your sake, I passed over that unfortunate suggestion.
Why? It’s a perfectly logical suggestion. Our species is in no danger of becoming extinct, and worldwide poverty rates are deplorable.
East Asia and Pacific 9.07%
Europe and Central Asia .95%
Latin America and the Caribbean 8.64%
Middle East and North Africa 1.47%
South Asia 30.84%
Sub-Saharan Africa 41.09%
Those numbers are from 2004 and are measured against that regions standard of living. Not against a 1st world standard of living.
You are right, our current model is far superior, where people can have as many kids as they like, regardless of their ability to care for them. It’s better for governments to pass out wellfare, and international agencies to provide relief, rather than countries controlling their populations and resources.
Here are few common causes of mental retardation.
Causes
Damn near all of them could be eliminated by a combination of genetic screening, and controlling the circumstances of pregnancy to ensure good resource availability.
So now not only are we going to restrict who can have children, we’re going to severely restrict women’s freedoms during pregnancy? That’s what you’d need to do to stop every woman who really wants to, for example, drink alcohol or eat undercooked meat even though she’s pregnant.
That’s why I said “Near all” And not “all”.
Definitely not just No, but Hell No! Look at the homosexuality gene example above: what rational person would bring forth someone almost certain to not give them grandchildren?
Most horrible ideas have a certain kind of logic. Otherwise they wouldn’t happen. But the idea is a disgusting invasion of privacy. Believe it or not, I think I can run my life better than a government, and I think my right to do as I see fit with my body - even if it’s a stupid error - trumps your vision of society’s right to modest improvements in the gene pool and lower taxes.
I don’t think you’re being deliberately racist, by the way, but the racist overtones in your proposal are impossible to ignore. Right there in your statistics, you’re indicating the idea would have its greatest effect on the third world. The comparison to ethnic cleansing shouldn’t be avoided just because you don’t like it.
Oh: and you’ve got me agreeing with Mr. Moto, so you should probably know based on that that your idea is either terrific or chillingly terrible. And my objection is not religious in nature.
While I understand the emotional objection to screening out gay genes and other socially stigmatized traits pre-conception, I’m trying to figure out the ethical reasoning for saying this is wrong in absolute terms.
Say a couple screens out all gametes that carry genes for red hair, so that their embryos consist of brunnettes only. And let’s say this becomes a trend and a lot of people decide that they too want to limit their offspring to brunnettes. Keep in mind that no one is being killed or even aborted. What are the possible consequences to this development that should cause us to freak out?
If the answer is, “we don’t know and that’s the problem!” then couldn’t you say the same thing about all of our medical interventions that end up affecting the gene pool, albeit indirectly? And if the answer is “it’s not fair to play God like that by culling red hair from the population like that!” then couldn’t you argue that we already select against certain traits by only having sex with people we are attracted to? Genetic screening is just a more efficient and quicker form of natural selection in a sense, because it is a more direct way of ensuring the traits we find most desirable are passed along to our kids.
Can someone tell me why my arguments are wrong here?
I don’t have a problem with parents voluntarily using genetic screening. I have a problem with the government telling us we have to.
Not only that, but this concentration on weeding out the unfit has cropped up before as well - that’s certainly not a new idea, is it?
Well, I think the notion that we shouldn’t behave like (I’ll say it) Nazis isn’t a terribly controversial position - but you’ll always get some contrarian, won’t you?
It’s not my fault that the third world is made up primarily of non Caucasian racial groups that have been taken advantage of in the past by imperialist Caucasians. My proposal has nothing to do with race, ethnic group, culture or any other criteria than genetic diseases, and unwanted pregnancies. Those areas have terrible problems, many of which could be addressed if they got their populations under control. It has nothing to do with race whatsoever. By controlling the birthrate, the governments might be able to properly feed their nations, thus eliminating one major factor of poverty. If everyone can eat, than everyone is healthier. If everyone is healthier than medical care is relieved of a significant burden and can function more effectively. Healthy people are more productive, and this will allow time for education. Educated people tend to have lower, more sustainable birthrates, and demand a higher standard of living and vote for infrastructure, and improvements; and tend to have less tolerance for totalitarian and corrupt regimes. Educated people tend to abuse drugs less than the uneducated. They tend to be more law-abiding since they can provide for themselves and their families. It isn’t a cure-all for societies’ ills, but a sustainable birthrate that allows people to enjoy sex without burden of pregnancy and children until they are ready, is hardly a violation of human rights.
And we’d all be better off if Steven Hawking was never born, how exactly?
Okay, we have two issues: the ethics of what individuals decide and the prudence of allowing the government to influence the progeny we create.
To the last issue, I think monstro made a good point earlier that I’ll reiterate. Why does it seem like we are quick to assume the government will suddenly go all Nazi Aryan nation on us if they are allowed to restrict our reproductive habits? Checks and balances presumable would still apply. They wouldn’t have carte blanche to do whatever they’d want, and any restrictions imposed would still have to be vetted and ratified and all that constitutional jazz.
The government currently enforces others laws that result in people being locked up or even executed. And just like with eugenics, history has shown the government can abuse this power and be less than infallible. But this alone doesn’t send us shrieking into the night. Given that, why is the idea of the government stepping into the reproduction realm that radical and scary?
Same here. I don’t have a problem with the reversible sterilization idea to prevent unplanned pregnancies, either, as long as the decision to be temporarily sterilized or reverse it is the individual’s decision, and nobody else gets any input on it. Not the government, not their family, not anybody except the individual.
And yes, I know that genetic screening will result in some parents choosing to screen out traits that I might not like them to screen out. They might select for boys who will develop big muscles and no body hair instead of growing up to be nice fat or skinny geeks 
Of course it isn’t. It would be a great thing if every country in the world gave people easy and affordable access to safe, effective, and reversible birth control. You’re not going to find a lot of people here who would argue otherwise.
Now, forcing people to postpone childbearing until someone else thinks they are ready, or making it so someone can’t have children because someone else thinks they shouldn’t, that’s another kettle of fish entirely.
You don’t need government control of the birthrate to bring it down. Western Europe is Exhibit A here. If you make it so that people have access to birth control and the education on how to use it, and women have opportunities to do something other than bearing and raising children, you get a drop in the birth rate. And that eventually holds true even if the prevailing religion says birth control is bad and large families are good- look at Italy.
Because I could see it being very popular if the government decided to make it harder for, say, Spanish speakers or Muslims to get permission to have children than it would be for white English-speaking Protestants. Until our society has advanced to the point that anyone who complains that “those undesirables are breeding faster than we are” is shouted down and ostracized from society, I don’t trust society’s representatives (the government) to do something like this fairly.
Because that’s what governments do, given the power to choose who breeds and who doesn’t. “Checks and balances” didn’t stop them last time.
That’s by Charles Davenport, a leading American eugenicist, and he published this book in 1911.
Why do you think you’re on the cusp of something new and exciting and untried?
One out of how many? Please.
I see what you are saying, but your argument about the tyrannical rule of the majority (or a clout-welding minority) isn’t unique to reproduction. The same people that would try to use the government to keep Muslims from procreating could also use the government to incarcerate Muslims. So obviously we trust the government to do some things right. Why not reproduction?
There is a world of difference between the two, and If you fail to see it, it is because you are trying to deliberately.
My suggestion was to eliminate genetically inherited diseases through pre-screening of gametes. I said nothing about breeding pairs, matching mates, state sanctioned marriages, racial superiority, master races, or any other such drivel.
My other proposal is a direct application of what Anne Neville was talking about in western Europe. Instead of plugging along trying to break the hold of superstition and religious misinformation about birth control; Simply control the bulk reproduction for a few years to break the cycle of poverty. It might be easier to work on educating a population that can feed itself.