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Quote by: rmnunez  I would not hesitate in suggesting an abortion to a patient whose fetus was diagnosed with some terrible deformity, degenerative condition or genetic disease. If this was the result of genetic material, it makes sense to interdict it before an abortion is necessary. This is why sexual relations among patients in mental institutions are discouraged.
It would be ridiculous to take the opposite tack saying people with these genetically transmitted diseases are endowed with some sort of collective right to non-discrimination on the basis of their different ability, then we'd need to tabulate what proportion and in what degree of impairment a fetus should be allowed to continue gestation.
Delivering babies with deformities, degenerative conditions and genetic diseases ought to be avoided to the degree we cannot mitigate their suffering. The problem is with the slope. We'd all agree its best to abort a fetus with any of the worse diseases that cause the most agonic suffering, but what about things like diabetes or epilepsy?
And how about if you go for positive traits? That's when you get into those Hitlerian schemes, only blue-eyed blondes of tall parents... But now, examining vast databases as people get sampled, we can cull from these the strongest strains of the best genetic features to build a master race. A breed of genetically select people resistant to disease. |
What I think they hope to do is to simply remove, replace, or "fix" the defective gene that might cause genetic diseases (etc.) rather then conducting a total abortion. They would abort only the gene and not the rest of the fomulating baby. Like organ transplants they might do gene transplants in the future, especially if stem cell research gives them the knowledge to creating genes taylor made for that purpose. But like I said this would be done without hinting at the master race concepts of Hitler. But critics would use the hitler card. I think the ideas you outlined will be the future of science and medicene and with the full co-operation of parents who I feel sure would want healthy babies. However rejecting such science might have legal repremands if a parent refused medical treatments that could have prevented the child's suffering later.
A current trends would suggest that might be the case.
But it is also a matter of who is in charge and if they would use the technology to interfer with the individualistic differences in people.
Removing the "gay gene" for example after such is approved by the parents. Right or wrong? Removing the gene that is linked to people becoming religious fundamentalists - so that we have no one to object to science - right or wrong? And doing genetic operations before birth instead of plastic surgery after birth so we have "beautiful children"... right or wrong? Do people have a "morality gene"?
We are opening new doors to yet unknown possiblities and so some people are caught un-prepared for such realities and feel un-easy about what all this future technology will yeild. But perhaps too late...it is started and will continue to unfold. For better or worse society must adapt to the existance of this new scientific vision or else backtrack into the dark ages.
Death is still not avoidable. For even if they removed the gene that shuts down the growth harmones you could get run over by a bus and die.
However with gene re-designing you could delite the ageing processes and the death that such degeneration causes. As long as you avoided all external conditions that might kill you, and did proper maintanence (eating food and so forth) you could live forever. Like the dinosaur gene of primitive times. Science has indicated that some ocean fish do not get old and die, they only die if killed by a preditor or other external problems in the environment. Of course, sooner or later that would happen to them. On the food chain humans have few animal preditors to deal with, a gun can kill a lion. It is the most ancient of preditors that we have the most fear of in the food chain, the microscopic preditors. According to the bible we should dominate the animals - done a pretty good job in that respect - next on the list are the micro-organisms, with our own science such might be possible to fullfill what we were commanded to take charge of.