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

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

a lot of times, mental retardation comes along with physical conditions that are life-threatening, but the retardation is not life-threatening itself

Indeed, that is one of those cases when there is no life-threatening condition.

I'm seeing conditions impacting the quality of life every day in my job. It's not a one-answer question, but if we're to assume that the mothers (parents) are the ones who should have the freedom to decide what to do with their bodies, all I'm saying is that I'd understand why they'd think twice if they had the ability to decide in such cases.

I don't care about the PC debate on the term "retardation".

[futurebird.livejournal.com]

I don't care about the PC debate on the term "retardation".

You should. All people have asked is that everyone stop calling people "retards" as an insult. Is that so hard? Not really.

[bex.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, but this is the great epithet arms race, isn't it? At one point, "mentally retarded" WAS the politically correct term. Until people started using it as an insult. Same with "spastic", "idiot", "moron", "stupid", "imbecile." This happens because people WITH these disabilities are looked down upon. No matter what we call them, that term will end up as an insult, simply because of how people feel about people with disabilities - to compare an able-bodied individual to someone with a disability is considered an insult. Until you correct that attitude and make society more egalitarian, you will never have a "PC" term for long. It will always end up as an insult, and then you'll need a new word... again and again and again.

[futurebird.livejournal.com]

Or we could stop thinking that having disabilities something worthy of insult. I mean this is simple to say hard to do. It's a nice first step to just listen to what a large number of people and their families have asked for quite vocally.

I know I have been raised in a culture steeped in prejudice and I will never be perfectly free of it myself, but I can do what's asked of me at least.

I don't know, part of it is that we confuse people being shortsighted/assholes/mean/careless etc. with mental illness. We confuse character flaws that are under an individuals control, with things that are NOT under our control.

But I think we can handel telling these things apart, and find better ways to describe human folly than by analogy to mental illness.

[bex.livejournal.com]

Or we could stop thinking that having disabilities something worthy of insult. I mean this is simple to say hard to do. It's a nice first step to just listen to what a large number of people and their families have asked for quite vocally.

That's exactly what I just said. I said "Until you correct that attitude...".

My point was that it's fine to eradicate "retard" as an insult and try to police speech, but until you correct the underlying problem that people with disabilities are looked down upon, whatever new term you come up with ("different-abled", for example) will eventually become an insult. Then you'll need a new term. Then THAT will become an insult.

So, as I said, you have to change the attitude underneath the speech. The speech itself is dynamic and ever-changing, so if you only focus on correcting speech, you will never catch up.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

It's OK, I won't use that word since it annoys people. But I wouldn't argue for or against it either. That's what "not caring" means in my case.