Eugenics, genetics, your kids and mine...

[futurebird.livejournal.com]

An important question looming on the horizon is: "to what extent can couples determine the genetic make-up of their kids."

I have a simple answer: "It's not evil eugenics if a majority of those with the genetic trait advocate helping future children avoid it. "


For example, I'm quite short, this has not really had a positive impact on my life my husband is tall and I'd be quite happy to let his genes take over the whole height thing. I'd have a similar feeling were I abnormally tall. On the other hand it'd make me angry if someone ruled out darker skin for our child, that'd be cowing to the pressure of racism, I think ... and creepy. (dark skin also protects one from skin cancers and painful sunburns) I don't envy the lengths my husband must go to avoid getting burned. My husband has often been quite cheerful about the prospect of his kids not having a hard time with the sun as he has.

So, I think the solution is to ask people who have these traits if they *want* them passed on or not. In that sense, maybe the "looming question" isn't so big-- most couples will naturally want persevere human diversity, but will not have much interest in saving traits that just make life more difficult.

But of course things are not that simple. Many black folks (for example) might have chosen lighter skin (and some might do so today) to protect their child from racism. I find this depressing and my instinct is to find a way to prevent it. But, should the state have any place in such choices?

There are lots of people who would quickly choose to reduce the chance of their child being gay (I doubt being gay is as simple as a single gene, so mercifully it may not be possible to tamper with this without tampering with other traits) --on the one hand, maybe it's good that gay kids don't end up being born to intolerant people, on the other, there are enough intolerant people that, if the genetics of sexuality were simple enough, we'd probably see a sharp decine in the gay population. I think this is really depressing.

Now I treated the height issue like it was simple, but there are probably some short people who feel differently.

I think we could come up with reasonable laws by asking those who have a given gene what they think about people selecting for it or against it.

And now for a incomplete poll:


[Poll #1768916]

PS. Here is a great documentary that relates to these questions.

Comments

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

Gattaca

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

The problem in Gattaca was not that genetic engineering existed but that people were able to use political power against others on the basis of that genetic engineering.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

An idea unworkable in the real world. Humans cannot be bred like livestock and even if they could be, just ask the Habsburgs how that ends up working out for people. For that matter livestock tend to suffer problems from being purebred for too long themselves.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

There is a new test that will determine the sex of a fetus as early as 7 weeks.

This means that the population of women will continue to decline. What hath abortion on demand wrought?

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

If there were a way to safely genetically determine that my child would be female I would take it. However as much as I do not want a male child if I found out I was having one, even as early as 7 weeks, I would never abort for that reason.

[futurebird.livejournal.com]

My husband and I prefer a girl. in the US there is a slight preference for female children. I hope our daughter will be OK with her Chinese husband.

XD

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I'm actually really curious as to how this issue trends with the abortion issue.

[raichu100.livejournal.com]

This is largely true in non-Western countries, and it is disgusting. What purpose is such a test supposed to serve other than aiding gendercide?

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Could you cut please? Thanks in advance.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Avoid genetically debilitating illnesses and mental retardation, i.e. things that would threaten the health of the kid, and that, only provided it includes life-threatening diseases. Everything else is superficial.

[bex.livejournal.com]

I agree with this, though I see the hypocrisy in it, too. Where do you draw the line for "suffering"? Should parents be able to avoid autism? Asperger's? What about dyslexia? Our education system caters to one specific way of learning, and children who learn differently are underserved and may struggle - do we select against kids who would suffer in our arbitrarily-created education model? I think there's things we would all agree we would like to select against (say, cystic fibrosis), but it would be difficult to agree on a cut-off. Is physical suffering "worth more" than emotional suffering? Is a physically disabled person with a healthy mind better or worse off than a physically-able but mentally disabled person?

I don't know. Ultimately, on the above poll, I have to say "none of these." I think it's dangerous to mess too much with genetic diversity. Things like hair, eye and skin color, height, athletic prowess - why would you want to limit those things according to very fleeting standards of beauty? This is what proponents of racial eugenics seemed to forget. Genetic diversity protects species from extinction. It provides solutions to small problems before they become species-wide. Bottle-necking our gene pool for short-term interests like "looking pretty" and "being good at sports" is... I don't know, I don't really have words for it. Outrageous? Ridiculous? Sad?

[raichu100.livejournal.com]

This.

I think hte idea of potentially wiping out genetically inherited disease is a great one, but it shouldn't be mandated. I know if I were at risk for passing on a disease I'd want to do what I could to make sure it didn't happen. Sadly, I don't know there's much way to do that rn without creating and destroying embryonic life...

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

We don't know what genetics we need and what genetics we don't. Leave it alone. Don't mess with it. Soon enough, we're going to have found ourselves bred into even more and worse health conditions, like with race horses or specialty dog breeds. We don't know enough about it.

You want pug faced children? Well that's what is going to happen I tell you.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

Err... I already chose my child's general tallness (average), eye color (brown), skin color (cafe con leche), and fatness/skinniness (unfortunately, heavy)... even though she hasn't been conceived.

How? I know a little about my own genetics and my wife's genetics; I've looked at both of us.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Dailyquoted.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

As you said, I can see the logic in being able to choose genetic traits you would not want to inflict on the next generation. I've considered this deeply.

1. I'm short. Sure, I'd love to be taller, but other than needing a step-stool to reach high things, or climbing directly onto the kitchen counter to get to the top shelf, there's no real problem with it. In fact, it has its benefits. I can wear clothes from the boys' department (much less expensive), and I don't feel squished in economy seats on airplanes. In a famine, I require less food than a larger person. And even at the diminutive stature of 5'1", I played a forward in college basketball, in addition to playing tons of other sports. It didn't hold me back from becoming an Army officer, and really, it's a non-issue. It's superficial. If I were to have a genetic offspring, I fail to see why being "short" and otherwise perfectly healthy is a problem.

I would personally see it as shallow to want to prevent "shortness" from being passed on to the next generation.

2. I have a debilitating genetic auto-immune condition that only manifested in the past couple of years. I have a dozen prescriptions, obnoxious complications, medical bills up to my eyeballs, and (when the disease is active) horrible pain. (And remember, when I say horrible pain, I'm someone who used to ruck-march up to 12 miles with an 80-pound pack and think it was fun.) It's mostly under control right now, but when it's bad, I can barely walk because of the joint pain, and I'm terrified that I'm going to end up with twisted and damaged joints by the age of 35 (I'm 30). There's a significant chance of getting kidney damage or damage to other internal organs.

I would not want to inflict this on the next generation. Whereas I have many traits I would love to see passed on to the next generation, this is too much. I can handle it, sure, but if it were a case of avoiding the creation of a child who would probably have this condition... of course I'd avoid it. This isn't healthy, normal human variety and genetic diversity like height, skin tone, facial features, hair color, gender, and so on. This is an actual disease. I shall never have biological children. Completely aside from the fact that I believe the world is overpopulated and I wouldn't want to bring a child into the current global situation, I still wouldn't have biological children because I wouldn't want to pass on this condition.

Would I abort a child if (hypothetically) I became pregnant? In my case, YES, because I also can't stomach the idea of ever giving birth. However, that's all hypothetical because 1) I'm gay, and 2) I'm completely physically infertile (the equipment is gone). I never, NEVER had the intention of biologically procreating anyway, so it's a moot point for me.

What would I want for other people? Oh, that's where it gets sticky.

THEORETICALLY:

- If a parent has a horrible genetic condition, I'd HOPE the parent would go for adoption over biological reproduction in the first place.

- If it's a less horrible genetic condition (and NO, I have no idea where to draw the line), then consider adoption, but hey, it's not the end of the world.

And I know, I know... "What if your mother had aborted YOU, you asshole? You have a genetic condition, so are you saying your mother should have aborted you? Huh? Huh?"

Well, if she'd aborted me, I wouldn't care because I wouldn't have existed. Simple as that. To be, or not to be? But here's the other part of the argument: My mother has NO health conditions. And when I was born, my father had NO KNOWN health conditions (he developed epilepsy as an adult, the year after I was born). And everyone else in my genetic family had no known genetic conditions at the time, except one grandmother with arthritis. This is just proof that you never know who's gonna end up with a genetic quirk.

Spin the wheel, baby, and place your bets.

That's my two cents.

[futurebird.livejournal.com]

Has being short ever gotten in the way of your dreams? It's not superficial AT ALL to me. I don't think it is easy to say what is superficial for another person. (or fair)

What IS this "allow" business? Where do YOU get the authority to forbid?

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

According to the currently prevalent Western theory of government, the State gets its authority through delegation from the citizen. If nobody is "more equal" politically than anyone else, then NOBODY has the authority to knock on their neighbors door and forbid them to do with their own genetics what they will. If nobody has that authority themselves then nobody can delegate any such authority to the State.

Re: What IS this "allow" business? Where do YOU get the authority to forbid?

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

That Vatican hold that authority over their subjects.

For what it's worth, the issue may be moot

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

I don't think genetic engineering offers the panacea that people think it does. The "Super Race" is a fantasy and a recurring trope in fiction. I suspect that it will be much more problematic to create such a creature in the real world than people suspect.

Note to futurebird: Here's another one for your list: engineered negligible senescence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineered_negligible_senescence).

Re: For what it's worth, the issue may be moot

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Precisely. Engineering lifeforms is more difficult than it is with machinery, and we've seen a lot of examples as to how engineering with machines can go badly wrong and overextend itself (see: Ratte tank). Purebred domestic animals have major problems and increasingly so these days. Purebred humans end up looking like this:



So the whole idea shows more of a concept of magical thinking than of biology.

I favor self-determination.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Religious fanatics will go so far as to try to prevent a couple from aborting a fetus with a severe genetic defect on the assumption that they are playing God. I do not subscribe to that school of theology. Instead, I favor parental freedom to make a continue/abort decision. Where one deity jealously guards their control over sexuality, a higher deity must advocate free will and the exercise thereof.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

This kind of playing God with the lives of other people should not be tolerated. Eugenics justly died long ago, we do not need to turn it from corpse into shuffling zombie.

[futurebird.livejournal.com]

God is still in control. This is just natural (sexual) selection accelerated.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Since my genes are obviously superior and perfectly adapted to our environment, we should use only them from now on.

And if you have some one or some group regulating in any way what people can and can't choose for their genetic reproduction, that's what they will say.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

Most humans already practice eugenics naturally. Any anthropologist worthy of the name will tell you this. Hardly anyone selects their mates based purely on personality.

Many black folks (for example) might have chosen lighter skin (and some might do so today) to protect their child from racism.

This works both ways. A ton of suburban pimple-faced wannabe whiteys would do damn near anything to be darker.

And in a way it's happening. White females and black males are intermarrying more than ever. Each group is trying to add the traits of the other to their offspring...which is good actually. Hybridization is the exact opposite of inbreeding, cf. heterosis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterosis). Same thing with white males and asian females like my wife and I. My daughter is doing excellently.

I find this depressing and my instinct is to find a way to prevent it.

Why? It's already happening naturally. And it's a good thing.

But, should the state have any place in such choices?

No, fuck the state. The first thing they'd have to do is outlaw intermarriage to prevent the darkening or lightening of a potential child's skin. I oppose this.

Also, is your husband white? If so, you are already a busted condom away from practicing eugenics.

[yelena-r0ssini.livejournal.com]

I realize you said it's an incomplete poll but what about the Deaf? Given that deafness is a disability but also a culture with its own languages, is it "all right" for Deaf parents to select for deaf children so as to be able to more easily share a culture and a language with their offspring? I feel like it's an issue that warrants its own ticky box.

Personally, I can't see the point in genetic engineering and I don't screen for anything except Tay-Sachs with my own offspring, but I guess if other people want "designer" children, hey, knock yourselves out. My real concern on a sociological level isn't so much the abstract morality of selecting for traits, but the inevitable heightening of class stratification in societies in which some parents can afford to genetically optimize their children and others can't.

[futurebird.livejournal.com]

is it "all right" for Deaf parents to select for deaf children so as to be able to more easily share a culture and a language with their offspring?

Of course, why not?

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

You omitted including "none of the above".