It's a matter of weighing it out in terms of your own personal consequences, as with anything else in life. If you don't want to risk having a baby with a crippling disease, and you don't want to destroy any embryos, then you're left with adoption as your option. If the destruction of a few embryos doesn't bother you, then you've got adoption AND screening as options. In that case, you weigh what you know will be the draw backs of those two options, and make your choice.
Designer BABIES !!!
- Thread starter jimmoyer
- Start date
It's a matter of weighing it out in terms of your own personal consequences, as with anything else in life. If you don't want to risk having a baby with a crippling disease, and you don't want to destroy any embryos, then you're left with adoption as your option. If the destruction of a few embryos doesn't bother you, then you've got adoption AND screening as options. In that case, you weigh what you know will be the draw backs of those two options, and make your choice.
the problem with allowing people to weigh it out for themselves is a lot of people are just plain stupid and a lot more are simply too emotionally tied up to be able to make a sensible decision in this kind of matter.
That sentiment has been used to justify A LOT of paternalistic doctors in the past. I'd rather err on the side of individual rights even when I disagree with the decisions they make. I know I don't want someone else making decisions about my life.
True enough... I would add though that normal in vitro (no screening) also involved discarding embryos so it is much more common than embryos being discarded for genetic reasons.
I wouldnt leave it up to the doctors either. As we discussed earlier, it could be a legislative issue, so influenced by the public but with expert advice and rational debate before final decisions.
What is the problem with making your baby blonde or right handed again?
If I want to do that now Im allowed to. I'll only sleep with a blond and raise the kid to be right handed with careful attention.
If I wanted to have a black baby who cares? As long as its healthy what does it matter how people look.
If I want to do that now Im allowed to. I'll only sleep with a blond and raise the kid to be right handed with careful attention.
If I wanted to have a black baby who cares? As long as its healthy what does it matter how people look.
handedness isnt a matter of training. it's built in. 1 in 8 people are left handed. this has been known for a very long time. There are castles in wales with 8 towers, one of which is built with the staircase the other way round so as to make it defendable by the inevitable lefty soldier.
i thought so too. that not only were they aware in the 1400's that 1 in 8 people was left-handed but they made accomodations for it.
I'm in favor of guidelines and standards, not legislation when it comes to determining which diseases are worthy of being screened for (bar genetic engineering with legislation and I couldn't care less). Legislators are politicians. They will pander to an uneducated public everytime if it will get them re-elected. Guidelines and standards allow for a good balance between maintaining ethics and patient autonomy IMO. It's how most medical issues work.
Sanctus posted this in another related thread:
And to Tracy, I meant no offense to your position on these matters and don't take
this post to mean I've disregarded your commentary on this. Everyone has really brought
out some good points on this matter for both sides of the argument.
I just thought the past jaded history of designer babies and our un-erring ability to err
in controlling things is appropriate for this thread:
--------------------
Great men are almost always bad men," Lord Acton famously said. If that is so, we are going to have to tolerate flaws if we want to celebrate "great" Canadians. The eugenics movement of the early 20th century particularly tries our tolerance of several of our textbook heroes.
It was Charles Darwin's cousin Francis Galton who coined the term "eugenics" (Greek for "well-born") in 1883 to describe the process of improving or impairing "the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally."
Eugenicists promoted sterilization, marriage laws and segregation of the mentally handicapped. The movement swept much of the globe, including Canada.
The pseudo-science behind eugenics was based on a crude misconception of heredity as "like begets like," which assumed that the "feeble-minded" inevitably passed on their pathology to their offspring.
They had their greatest influence in Alberta, where Canada's first woman magistrate Emily Murphy lectured widely on the dangers of bad genes.
"Insane people," she proclaimed, "are not entitled to progeny." Another prominent campaigner for sterilization was the suffragist Liberal MLA Nellie McClung, whose promotion of the benefits of sterilization, especially for "young simple-minded girls," was vital to the passage of eugenics legislation in Alberta.
Another of the "Famous Five," the Hon. Irene Parlby, repeatedly alarmed the public to the growing rate at which the "mentally deficient" were propagating. Her "great and only solution to the problem" was sterilization.
Despite this fervent support, the United Farmers of Alberta government was hesitant to pass sterilization legislation. Premier John Brownlee expressed "anything but enthusiasm." The Camrose United Farmers Women's Association submitted a resolution declaring that "sterilization constitutes a violent and drastic invasion of the most elementary human rights," an objection that is hard to improve upon even today.
Nevertheless, the Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act passed on March 7, 1928, creating a Eugenics Board with the power to authorize the sexual sterilization of individuals. From 1929 to 1972, the board approved 4725 of 4800 cases brought before it, of whom 2822 were officially sterilized. (British Columbia passed a similar act in 1933 but was far less vigorous in its implementation. In any case the BC records have been destroyed.)
The Alberta Eugenics Board took on a life of its own. Neither the wave of revulsion that followed the revelations of Hitler's policies to "purify" the German people, nor the strong repudiation of eugenics ideas by leading scientists had any impact on the operation of the board, which continued its work with the full support of the Social Credit government. The new Conservative government of Peter Lougheed finally erased the law in 1972.
A celebrated law case finally brought the eugenics disgrace to light. Leilani Muir sued the Alberta government for wrongfully confining her, stigmatizing her as a moron, and sterilizing her. Rather than offering an acceptable settlement out of court, the Klein government insisted on a full trial, which took place in 1995. The Hon. Madame Justice Joanne B. Veit ruled that the province had wrongfully sterilized Ms Muir and ordered it to pay damages. "The circumstances of Ms Muir's sterilization were so high-handed and so contemptuous... and were undertaken in an atmosphere that so little respected Ms Muir's dignity that the community's and the court's sense of decency is offended," Veit wrote in her judgment.
The story of eugenics is the story of human fallibility, of people who resorted to extreme theories while being convinced that they were absolutely right. While citing science to support their presumptions, they ignored the basic principle of true science -- to think it possible that you may be mistaken. Whether or not we feel that the heroines of the fight for women's equality are diminished by their advocacy of a repugnant idea like eugenics will depend not only on our own values of tolerance, but also on whether or not we expect more of our heroes than their own times would allow. The real hero in this story is Leilani Muir.
The taste for the eugenics of earlier times has diminished but the spirit is hardly crushed in the current atmosphere, confused over the moral implications of genetic engineering and stem-cell research, and subject once again to a worrisome and absolutist faith in collective solutions to intimate moral problems.
James H. Marsh is editor in chief of The Canadian Encyclopedia.
The Canadian Encyclopedia Copyright © 2007 Historica Foundation of Canada
And to Tracy, I meant no offense to your position on these matters and don't take
this post to mean I've disregarded your commentary on this. Everyone has really brought
out some good points on this matter for both sides of the argument.
I just thought the past jaded history of designer babies and our un-erring ability to err
in controlling things is appropriate for this thread:
--------------------
Great men are almost always bad men," Lord Acton famously said. If that is so, we are going to have to tolerate flaws if we want to celebrate "great" Canadians. The eugenics movement of the early 20th century particularly tries our tolerance of several of our textbook heroes.
It was Charles Darwin's cousin Francis Galton who coined the term "eugenics" (Greek for "well-born") in 1883 to describe the process of improving or impairing "the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally."
Eugenicists promoted sterilization, marriage laws and segregation of the mentally handicapped. The movement swept much of the globe, including Canada.
The pseudo-science behind eugenics was based on a crude misconception of heredity as "like begets like," which assumed that the "feeble-minded" inevitably passed on their pathology to their offspring.
They had their greatest influence in Alberta, where Canada's first woman magistrate Emily Murphy lectured widely on the dangers of bad genes.
"Insane people," she proclaimed, "are not entitled to progeny." Another prominent campaigner for sterilization was the suffragist Liberal MLA Nellie McClung, whose promotion of the benefits of sterilization, especially for "young simple-minded girls," was vital to the passage of eugenics legislation in Alberta.
Another of the "Famous Five," the Hon. Irene Parlby, repeatedly alarmed the public to the growing rate at which the "mentally deficient" were propagating. Her "great and only solution to the problem" was sterilization.
Despite this fervent support, the United Farmers of Alberta government was hesitant to pass sterilization legislation. Premier John Brownlee expressed "anything but enthusiasm." The Camrose United Farmers Women's Association submitted a resolution declaring that "sterilization constitutes a violent and drastic invasion of the most elementary human rights," an objection that is hard to improve upon even today.
Nevertheless, the Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act passed on March 7, 1928, creating a Eugenics Board with the power to authorize the sexual sterilization of individuals. From 1929 to 1972, the board approved 4725 of 4800 cases brought before it, of whom 2822 were officially sterilized. (British Columbia passed a similar act in 1933 but was far less vigorous in its implementation. In any case the BC records have been destroyed.)
The Alberta Eugenics Board took on a life of its own. Neither the wave of revulsion that followed the revelations of Hitler's policies to "purify" the German people, nor the strong repudiation of eugenics ideas by leading scientists had any impact on the operation of the board, which continued its work with the full support of the Social Credit government. The new Conservative government of Peter Lougheed finally erased the law in 1972.
A celebrated law case finally brought the eugenics disgrace to light. Leilani Muir sued the Alberta government for wrongfully confining her, stigmatizing her as a moron, and sterilizing her. Rather than offering an acceptable settlement out of court, the Klein government insisted on a full trial, which took place in 1995. The Hon. Madame Justice Joanne B. Veit ruled that the province had wrongfully sterilized Ms Muir and ordered it to pay damages. "The circumstances of Ms Muir's sterilization were so high-handed and so contemptuous... and were undertaken in an atmosphere that so little respected Ms Muir's dignity that the community's and the court's sense of decency is offended," Veit wrote in her judgment.
The story of eugenics is the story of human fallibility, of people who resorted to extreme theories while being convinced that they were absolutely right. While citing science to support their presumptions, they ignored the basic principle of true science -- to think it possible that you may be mistaken. Whether or not we feel that the heroines of the fight for women's equality are diminished by their advocacy of a repugnant idea like eugenics will depend not only on our own values of tolerance, but also on whether or not we expect more of our heroes than their own times would allow. The real hero in this story is Leilani Muir.
The taste for the eugenics of earlier times has diminished but the spirit is hardly crushed in the current atmosphere, confused over the moral implications of genetic engineering and stem-cell research, and subject once again to a worrisome and absolutist faith in collective solutions to intimate moral problems.
James H. Marsh is editor in chief of The Canadian Encyclopedia.
The Canadian Encyclopedia Copyright © 2007 Historica Foundation of Canada
JimMoyer
Eugenics - man's madness in "doing good".... another failure in our historical plundering through the ages.
There is a section in my family's geneology devoted to this subject as my father's side settled in the 1700s in early Alberta and the males of the family were always looking for European women (for whatever reason) to marry.... perhaps they felt Europe was free of mentally frail people (laughter here)....but how they wrote it was "imported wives were the choice"....
Of course when illness could wipe out a small settlement, I guess they had to think of strong people who could survive nature's onslaught during those early days....
Whatever their reasons, they populated many little towns in a prolific manner and few succumbed to illness except when influenza wiped out thousands but that was in the late 1920s I think.
Eugenics - man's madness in "doing good".... another failure in our historical plundering through the ages.
There is a section in my family's geneology devoted to this subject as my father's side settled in the 1700s in early Alberta and the males of the family were always looking for European women (for whatever reason) to marry.... perhaps they felt Europe was free of mentally frail people (laughter here)....but how they wrote it was "imported wives were the choice"....
Of course when illness could wipe out a small settlement, I guess they had to think of strong people who could survive nature's onslaught during those early days....
Whatever their reasons, they populated many little towns in a prolific manner and few succumbed to illness except when influenza wiped out thousands but that was in the late 1920s I think.
Went down? I know people who still push for the return of segregation and sterilization of the mentally handicapped. They don't want their children 'tainted' by the presence of the mentally handicapped or physically disabled in their schools, and want their right to reproduce taken away. I've even heard people push for MANDATORY genetic screening and abortion of babies with any mental or physical defects. This is a perfect example of why 'majority rule' shouldn't decide human rights.
At the same time, if people want to screen their children and abort fetus, go for it.
Im all for not forcing people to obey societal demands of how they act as long as it doesn't harm others. Not that means im also all for not forcing people to obey societal demands of they should act as long as it doesn't harm others.
People always seem to see one side and no the other.
If you want a designer baby have one, if you don't, don't.
Im all for not forcing people to obey societal demands of how they act as long as it doesn't harm others. Not that means im also all for not forcing people to obey societal demands of they should act as long as it doesn't harm others.
People always seem to see one side and no the other.
If you want a designer baby have one, if you don't, don't.
Another brain fried
Updated:2007-03-15 12:58:03
Furor Over Baptist's 'Gay Baby' Article
By DAVID CRARY
AP [Associated Press]
NEW YORK (March 15) - The president of the leading Southern Baptist seminary has incurred sharp attacks from both the left and right by suggesting that a biological basis for homosexuality may be proven, and that prenatal treatment to reverse gay orientation would be biblically justified.
The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., one of the country's pre-eminent evangelical leaders, acknowledged that he irked many fellow conservatives with an article earlier this month saying scientific research "points to some level of biological causation" for homosexuality.
Proof of a biological basis would challenge the belief of many conservative Christians that homosexuality - which they view as sinful - is a matter of choice that can be overcome through prayer and counseling.
However, Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., was assailed even more harshly by gay-rights supporters. They were upset by his assertion that homosexuality would remain a sin even if it were biologically based, and by his support for possible medical treatment that could switch an unborn gay baby's sexual orientation to heterosexual.
"He's willing to play God," said Harry Knox, a spokesman on religious issues for the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay-rights group. "He's more than willing to let homophobia take over and be the determinant of how he responds to this issue, in spite of everything else he believes about not tinkering with the unborn."
Mohler said he was aware of the invective being directed at him on gay-rights blogs, where some participants have likened him to Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor notorious for death-camp experimentation.
"I wonder if people actually read what I wrote," Mohler said in a telephone interview. "But I wrote the article intending to start a conversation, and I think I've been successful at that."
The article, published March 2 on Mohler's personal Web site, carried a long but intriguing title: "Is Your Baby Gay? What If You Could Know? What If You Could Do Something About It?"
Mohler began by summarizing some recent research into sexual orientation, and advising his Christian readership that they should brace for the possibility that a biological basis for homosexuality may be proven.
Mohler wrote that such proof would not alter the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality, but said the discovery would be "of great pastoral significance, allowing for a greater understanding of why certain persons struggle with these particular sexual temptations."
He also referred to a recent article in the pop-culture magazine Radar, which explored the possibility that sexual orientation could be detected in unborn babies and raised the question of whether parents - even liberals who support gay rights - might be open to trying future prenatal techniques that would reverse homosexuality.
Mohler said he would strongly oppose any move to encourage abortion or genetic manipulation of fetuses on grounds of sexual orientation, but he would endorse prenatal hormonal treatment - if such a technology were developed - to reverse homosexuality. He said this would no different, in moral terms, to using technology that would restore vision to a blind fetus.
"I realize this sounds very offensive to homosexuals, but it's the only way a Christian can look at it," Mohler said. "We should have no more problem with that than treating any medical problem."
Mohler's argument was endorsed by a prominent Roman Catholic thinker, the Rev. Joseph Fessio, provost of Ave Maria University in Naples, Fla., and editor of Ignatius Press, Pope Benedict XVI's U.S. publisher.
"Same-sex activity is considered disordered," Fessio said. "If there are ways of detecting diseases or disorders of children in the womb, and a way of treating them that respected the dignity of the child and mother, it would be a wonderful advancement of science."
Such logic dismayed Jennifer Chrisler of Family Pride, a group that supports gay and lesbian families.
"What bothers me is the hypocrisy," she said. "In one breath, they say the sanctity of an unborn life is unconditional, and in the next breath, it's OK to perform medical treatments on them because of their own moral convictions, not because there's anything wrong with the child."
Paul Myers, a biology professor at the University of Minnesota-Morris, wrote a detailed critique of Mohler's column, contending that there could be many genes contributing to sexual orientation and that medical attempts to alter it could be risky.
"If there are such genes, they will also contribute to other aspects of social and sexual interactions," Myers wrote. "Disentangling the nuances of preference from the whole damn problem of loving people might well be impossible."
Not all reaction to Mohler's article has been negative.
Dr. Jack Drescher, a New York City psychiatrist critical of those who consider homosexuality a disorder, commended Mohler's openness to the prospect that it is biologically based.
"This represents a major shift," Drescher said. "This is a man who actually has an open mind, who is struggling to reconcile his religious beliefs with facts that contradict it."
Updated:2007-03-15 12:58:03
Furor Over Baptist's 'Gay Baby' Article
By DAVID CRARY
AP [Associated Press]
NEW YORK (March 15) - The president of the leading Southern Baptist seminary has incurred sharp attacks from both the left and right by suggesting that a biological basis for homosexuality may be proven, and that prenatal treatment to reverse gay orientation would be biblically justified.
The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., one of the country's pre-eminent evangelical leaders, acknowledged that he irked many fellow conservatives with an article earlier this month saying scientific research "points to some level of biological causation" for homosexuality.
Proof of a biological basis would challenge the belief of many conservative Christians that homosexuality - which they view as sinful - is a matter of choice that can be overcome through prayer and counseling.
However, Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., was assailed even more harshly by gay-rights supporters. They were upset by his assertion that homosexuality would remain a sin even if it were biologically based, and by his support for possible medical treatment that could switch an unborn gay baby's sexual orientation to heterosexual.
"He's willing to play God," said Harry Knox, a spokesman on religious issues for the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay-rights group. "He's more than willing to let homophobia take over and be the determinant of how he responds to this issue, in spite of everything else he believes about not tinkering with the unborn."
Mohler said he was aware of the invective being directed at him on gay-rights blogs, where some participants have likened him to Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor notorious for death-camp experimentation.
"I wonder if people actually read what I wrote," Mohler said in a telephone interview. "But I wrote the article intending to start a conversation, and I think I've been successful at that."
The article, published March 2 on Mohler's personal Web site, carried a long but intriguing title: "Is Your Baby Gay? What If You Could Know? What If You Could Do Something About It?"
Mohler began by summarizing some recent research into sexual orientation, and advising his Christian readership that they should brace for the possibility that a biological basis for homosexuality may be proven.
Mohler wrote that such proof would not alter the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality, but said the discovery would be "of great pastoral significance, allowing for a greater understanding of why certain persons struggle with these particular sexual temptations."
He also referred to a recent article in the pop-culture magazine Radar, which explored the possibility that sexual orientation could be detected in unborn babies and raised the question of whether parents - even liberals who support gay rights - might be open to trying future prenatal techniques that would reverse homosexuality.
Mohler said he would strongly oppose any move to encourage abortion or genetic manipulation of fetuses on grounds of sexual orientation, but he would endorse prenatal hormonal treatment - if such a technology were developed - to reverse homosexuality. He said this would no different, in moral terms, to using technology that would restore vision to a blind fetus.
"I realize this sounds very offensive to homosexuals, but it's the only way a Christian can look at it," Mohler said. "We should have no more problem with that than treating any medical problem."
Mohler's argument was endorsed by a prominent Roman Catholic thinker, the Rev. Joseph Fessio, provost of Ave Maria University in Naples, Fla., and editor of Ignatius Press, Pope Benedict XVI's U.S. publisher.
"Same-sex activity is considered disordered," Fessio said. "If there are ways of detecting diseases or disorders of children in the womb, and a way of treating them that respected the dignity of the child and mother, it would be a wonderful advancement of science."
Such logic dismayed Jennifer Chrisler of Family Pride, a group that supports gay and lesbian families.
"What bothers me is the hypocrisy," she said. "In one breath, they say the sanctity of an unborn life is unconditional, and in the next breath, it's OK to perform medical treatments on them because of their own moral convictions, not because there's anything wrong with the child."
Paul Myers, a biology professor at the University of Minnesota-Morris, wrote a detailed critique of Mohler's column, contending that there could be many genes contributing to sexual orientation and that medical attempts to alter it could be risky.
"If there are such genes, they will also contribute to other aspects of social and sexual interactions," Myers wrote. "Disentangling the nuances of preference from the whole damn problem of loving people might well be impossible."
Not all reaction to Mohler's article has been negative.
Dr. Jack Drescher, a New York City psychiatrist critical of those who consider homosexuality a disorder, commended Mohler's openness to the prospect that it is biologically based.
"This represents a major shift," Drescher said. "This is a man who actually has an open mind, who is struggling to reconcile his religious beliefs with facts that contradict it."
Without getting into gay rights and original sin, once again we see trouble for
Designer Babies.
A number of you cautioned possible problems, mainly problems that are unanticipated
unintended consequences. One of the posters brought out the fact that even some mongoloid or retarded children brought great unanticpated joy to the parents, despite some of THAT EXTRA WORK which often constitutes the substance of bonding.
Designer Babies.
A number of you cautioned possible problems, mainly problems that are unanticipated
unintended consequences. One of the posters brought out the fact that even some mongoloid or retarded children brought great unanticpated joy to the parents, despite some of THAT EXTRA WORK which often constitutes the substance of bonding.
Down's Syndrome people (and I point this out to everyone who brings this up), are absolute joys. They are so bright, caring, and kind. Pure innocence. They live shorter lives a lot of the time, but in the time that they're here, they bring a totally different view of the world with them, and it's a wonderful thing. And even with some of the worse genetic issues, some of the lessons tehy ring to the people around them are amazing.
some people can handle downs syndrome children, some can't. Many marriages break up, and often the child is dumped onto siblings as a burden.
Down syndrome is a flaw, if people could give you a pill tommorow to give you the same effects as down syndrome permanenetly, no sane person would take it.
They have the same right to life as anyone else, but if there were some magic cure, then It would be dispensed. Children are meant to grow up.
IF a family decides they don't want a child with down syndrome, then I support that choice.
Down syndrome is a flaw, if people could give you a pill tommorow to give you the same effects as down syndrome permanenetly, no sane person would take it.
They have the same right to life as anyone else, but if there were some magic cure, then It would be dispensed. Children are meant to grow up.
IF a family decides they don't want a child with down syndrome, then I support that choice.