Let us say in the near future technology is developed so that when a fetus is detected to have a defect (mental or physical) it can be changed. Would you approve of say changing your fetus’ genetic code to stop him from having Down’s Syndrome or etc.
As for me I probably would.
In a heartbeat: my husband is in pain every day because of a bad gene. Why ever wouldn’t you stop that if you could?
Absolutely.
I’m a new father. Because of relatively new infant screenings in my state, I have learned that my son is a carrier of cystic fibrosis. He’s not sick, it just means we(his mother and I) have to remember to run that by him in 25 years in case he wants children. We also need to get tested so we know if we should try for a second child. I’ve yet to get the results of my own bloodwork back, but I’ve learned that its in my family since. There is no reason not to that gene mutation weeded out of humanity, providing the technology was availiable.
Ma’am, you have the choice of letting your child be born with fingers for legs and the intellect of an eggplant, or the potential to become an ex-Olympic athlete appointed a US Supreme Court justice.
Hmm.
Certainly. Given the chance I’d engineer it to the point it was more artificial than natural; I’d want something that could tear the arms off a Terminator and outrun a car. Removing outright defects is a no brainer.
Curtis LeMay, granting that you did not win a lot of staff approval for trying to set a record for the number of polls submitted by one poster in a week, you get no brownie points for submitting a poll in the debate forum, either.
Off to IMHO.
[ /Modding ]
Absolutely. I’d consider this the same as avoiding smoking and drinking during pregnancy. To ***not ***do it might even be considered child abuse.
Of course it raises the question of what constitutes a defect.
Fuck yes.
Yah. it’s the weh He wants it.
…it isn’t that simple either.
Case by Case.
Would I allow an artificial, socially constructed, “defect” to be altered… never. But if I could “save” a life, in its many definitions, I would.
Most definitely, unreservedly yes. I wouldn’t stop there… I see intentionally redesigning the human race as much as possible while keeping the fundamentals intact is imo the primary purpose of all of our technological progress.
Speaking as a parent of a child who was born with a defect, you bet I’d alter it if I could. Althought my daughter is the joy of my life, I would rather she had no developmental problems.
Hell yeah.
Seems like most Dopers are in agreement so far. With the permission if the OP, may I suggest tweaking the question slightly? What shouldn’t we genetically modify in the womb? Where do we draw the line? Cystic Fibrosis? Intelligence? Height? Eye Color? Skin Color?
I guess it is a fine line, and I don’t know exactly where something goes from “inconvenience” to “disability”. Plenty of people get by, and actually do spectacularly well, with different sorts of “disabilities”. But if I’m carrying a child and I know that I can fix, before the child is even born, the cleft palate, or the missing limbs, or the cystic fibrosis, or the sickle cell anemia… why wouldn’t I? I would do everything in my power to help fix the issue after the child is born, or to do what is necessary to help the child succeed in the world despite the disability. Give me a chance to prevent the whole thing by tweaking a gene in utero and I’d jump on it.
Absolutely.
Define mental defect, please. Might that include sexual orientation?
I have absolutely zero problems modifying an actual defect, like Down’s Syndrome. I have no idea where I’d draw the line until it actually happened. I suppose it would also depend on what everybody else was doing - you don’t want the Gattaca problem where your kid has no chance in life because everybody else’s is more perfect, right?