It’s a really deep pool, and I’m going to juuuust touch the edge here and say that consent should absolutely count, if they’re in a condition to give informed consent. In general, I expect that people with disabilities would prefer to not have the disability, and I would love to give them that choice. What shouldn’t happen, though, is people being changed or treated without their consent.
I mean, this will be used in utero waaaaay before it’s applied to a full adult human. Far easier to change the cells when there are only a few, and they haven’t already started to effect development.
Imo, then it’s between the parents and the clinicians involved. My son has autism severe enough that it hinders his learning and his social growth and stuff. I go back and forth about whether he’ll have the ability to live independently, or to have a partner and not beat the everloving shit out of them for what seems to be no reason. I love him, AND it’s a burden for everyone in the family, not just him, not just us parents. If given the choice, yes, I absolutely would have chosen to give him the chance at a life where he doesn’t spend every day frustrated by invisible barriers and possibly a life in prison or long term clinical detention (I forget the term) if we can’t get him to manage his physical outbursts by the time he’s an adult.
I have autism and i love it. it’s a significant part of me and i wouldn’t be the same person without. it has caused me some difficulties in life, but has also enabled me a lot of things that would otherwise be impossible.
i have very much the fear that my mother would have gotten me genetically engineered while in utero too, and i hate the thought of that!
I have ADHD and, given some shared traits with my diagnosed kids, likely autism as well. I like myself the way I am as well, but it’s definitely made my life harder. While it isn’t a disability for me, my wife, or my daughter, it is for my son, to the point where, even as he nears double digit age, we’re still unsure if he’s ever going to be able to participate in society and care for himself independently. I honestly worry, with how free with violence he is*, that he’s going to end up institutionalized or in and out of jail once he gets big enough to actually start hurting people. That’s not a life that I want for him.
*A specialist broke this down for us. Basically, he gets so frustrated and has no means of dealing with it or communicating the frustration that it manifests as a fight response.
Could this even be an option in late pregnancy, much less after someone has been born? There are some significant physical changes that could take place… and I can’t imagine what the mental changes would be like to go through.
Try reading MY comment. You are talking about a central element of the movie GATTACA from 1997. I know it’s old and many younger people haven’t seen it so I provided a link to the Wikipedia article about the film.
This issue was widely discussed, at least in American society, almost 30 years ago. The film is still heavily referenced in any discussion involving bio-ethics and genetic manipulation.
I mean, sure, if you ignore all of history. What if I was using CRISPR to prevent a child from being born black or brown?
Hell, what if I used it to keep a kid from being born deaf? The deaf community is one that’s very outspoken about exactly that kind of treatment as a form of eugenics, as it is a potential existential threat to their culture.
This isn’t going to lead to eugenics. You are living in a capitalist environment this is going to lead to only a population with a certain amount of income is going to be allowed to use this technology. Eugenics is a vocal minority and everybody that goes with eugenics does not have a basis as its always been disapproved from psychology to biology. You can find patterns but nothing is perfect and everybody has quirks. Also race is a social construct so eugenics can be completely useless as your parents and direct lineage matters more than anything for your biology.
I think it’s presumptuous that only a certain income level is going to have access to this. It very much depends on the scalability of the treatment. Nearly everyone in the entire nation got the COVID vaccine, and those that didn’t weren’t due to lack of financial means. Just because you assert this will be reserved for the ultra wealthy doesn’t make it so.
The rest of what you said is borderline unintelligible, but I’ll give it a shot.
Sure, it would probably be difficult to “un-black” a baby or something, as there are a ton of genetic markers that inform what we think of as “blackness.” But just because it’s hard, doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
And you say that Eugenics “is a vocal minority,” which I presume to mean that most people are anti-eugenics. But, as you say, we live in a capitalist hellscape. It would be entirely possible for a billionaire to run a “un-black your baby for a chance to win a million dollars” campaign (a’la the Elon Musk voting drive), and have that take off in a big way.
And all that assumes that people wouldn’t be driven to it by simple desire for conformity. It’s easy to justify a lot of things under the “my child would have a much better life if they just weren’t… fill in the blank.” In the modern climate as an example, there would probably be a lot of Hispanic people saying things like, “my child probably wouldn’t get abducted by ICE if they just were more white passing.” And that’s terrible, obviously, but I guarantee it would happen. Not every mother. Not even a majority. But a good number would.
But what does bodily autonomy mean when this will almost certainly be primarily used in utero? Should I be able to use CRISPR to keep my baby from being born with Downs?
Should I be able to use it to make my baby less prone to other diseases?
Make them taller?
Change their race?
Add interesting modifications that I think would be cool, like an extra set of arms or gills or something?
Should I be able to use CRISPR to keep my baby from being born with Downs?
Yes, absolutely yes. Downs children are wonderful, there’s one in my family, but I can say without hesitation that both he and his parents would have used a treatment like this if it was available. He’s 30 now and he himself would choose to do it if it was available.
Abortions are also in utero. And it’s not the choice of the child to be born either. Or a lot of the choices guardians make in stead of their children. Legally and ethically this shouldn’t be something you can stop them from choosing, even if I’m personally against such modifications for the reasons you’re probably thinking of too. If you say “we should stop gene modifications to prevent the loss of gene diversity risking great public health concern for our population”, that is also eugenics.
Where is the line with eugenics being bad and it being good?
It’s a really deep pool, and I’m going to juuuust touch the edge here and say that consent should absolutely count, if they’re in a condition to give informed consent. In general, I expect that people with disabilities would prefer to not have the disability, and I would love to give them that choice. What shouldn’t happen, though, is people being changed or treated without their consent.
I mean, this will be used in utero waaaaay before it’s applied to a full adult human. Far easier to change the cells when there are only a few, and they haven’t already started to effect development.
But it’s hard to get informed consent in utero.
Imo, then it’s between the parents and the clinicians involved. My son has autism severe enough that it hinders his learning and his social growth and stuff. I go back and forth about whether he’ll have the ability to live independently, or to have a partner and not beat the everloving shit out of them for what seems to be no reason. I love him, AND it’s a burden for everyone in the family, not just him, not just us parents. If given the choice, yes, I absolutely would have chosen to give him the chance at a life where he doesn’t spend every day frustrated by invisible barriers and possibly a life in prison or long term clinical detention (I forget the term) if we can’t get him to manage his physical outbursts by the time he’s an adult.
I have autism and i love it. it’s a significant part of me and i wouldn’t be the same person without. it has caused me some difficulties in life, but has also enabled me a lot of things that would otherwise be impossible.
i have very much the fear that my mother would have gotten me genetically engineered while in utero too, and i hate the thought of that!
I have ADHD and, given some shared traits with my diagnosed kids, likely autism as well. I like myself the way I am as well, but it’s definitely made my life harder. While it isn’t a disability for me, my wife, or my daughter, it is for my son, to the point where, even as he nears double digit age, we’re still unsure if he’s ever going to be able to participate in society and care for himself independently. I honestly worry, with how free with violence he is*, that he’s going to end up institutionalized or in and out of jail once he gets big enough to actually start hurting people. That’s not a life that I want for him.
*A specialist broke this down for us. Basically, he gets so frustrated and has no means of dealing with it or communicating the frustration that it manifests as a fight response.
Parents consent on behalf of their children all the time. In utero takes that to 11.
Could this even be an option in late pregnancy, much less after someone has been born? There are some significant physical changes that could take place… and I can’t imagine what the mental changes would be like to go through.
This isn’t eugenics. This is taking advantage of crispr to make genetic modifications.
I agree that it’s not eugenics, at least not as we normally think of it, but it’s definitely edging into GATTACA territory.
Read the other comment eugenics won’t be realistic in a capitalist environment class division would be more common.
Try reading MY comment. You are talking about a central element of the movie GATTACA from 1997. I know it’s old and many younger people haven’t seen it so I provided a link to the Wikipedia article about the film.
This issue was widely discussed, at least in American society, almost 30 years ago. The film is still heavily referenced in any discussion involving bio-ethics and genetic manipulation.
I mean, sure, if you ignore all of history. What if I was using CRISPR to prevent a child from being born black or brown?
Hell, what if I used it to keep a kid from being born deaf? The deaf community is one that’s very outspoken about exactly that kind of treatment as a form of eugenics, as it is a potential existential threat to their culture.
What if was used to prevent a child from being born with Spina bifada? What if it was used to correct SB so that the child wasn’t aborted?
Or what if its used to cure deafness after the effected person is no longer a minor?
Being born brown is not a disease. 😅
Pretty sure that’s the point they’re trying to make.
This isn’t going to lead to eugenics. You are living in a capitalist environment this is going to lead to only a population with a certain amount of income is going to be allowed to use this technology. Eugenics is a vocal minority and everybody that goes with eugenics does not have a basis as its always been disapproved from psychology to biology. You can find patterns but nothing is perfect and everybody has quirks. Also race is a social construct so eugenics can be completely useless as your parents and direct lineage matters more than anything for your biology.
I think it’s presumptuous that only a certain income level is going to have access to this. It very much depends on the scalability of the treatment. Nearly everyone in the entire nation got the COVID vaccine, and those that didn’t weren’t due to lack of financial means. Just because you assert this will be reserved for the ultra wealthy doesn’t make it so.
The rest of what you said is borderline unintelligible, but I’ll give it a shot.
Sure, it would probably be difficult to “un-black” a baby or something, as there are a ton of genetic markers that inform what we think of as “blackness.” But just because it’s hard, doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
And you say that Eugenics “is a vocal minority,” which I presume to mean that most people are anti-eugenics. But, as you say, we live in a capitalist hellscape. It would be entirely possible for a billionaire to run a “un-black your baby for a chance to win a million dollars” campaign (a’la the Elon Musk voting drive), and have that take off in a big way.
And all that assumes that people wouldn’t be driven to it by simple desire for conformity. It’s easy to justify a lot of things under the “my child would have a much better life if they just weren’t… fill in the blank.” In the modern climate as an example, there would probably be a lot of Hispanic people saying things like, “my child probably wouldn’t get abducted by ICE if they just were more white passing.” And that’s terrible, obviously, but I guarantee it would happen. Not every mother. Not even a majority. But a good number would.
bodily autonomy i think
But what does bodily autonomy mean when this will almost certainly be primarily used in utero? Should I be able to use CRISPR to keep my baby from being born with Downs?
Should I be able to use it to make my baby less prone to other diseases? Make them taller?
Change their race? Add interesting modifications that I think would be cool, like an extra set of arms or gills or something?
What does bodily autonomy mean for a fetus?
Yes, absolutely yes. Downs children are wonderful, there’s one in my family, but I can say without hesitation that both he and his parents would have used a treatment like this if it was available. He’s 30 now and he himself would choose to do it if it was available.
Doesn’t matter.
Abortions are also in utero. And it’s not the choice of the child to be born either. Or a lot of the choices guardians make in stead of their children. Legally and ethically this shouldn’t be something you can stop them from choosing, even if I’m personally against such modifications for the reasons you’re probably thinking of too. If you say “we should stop gene modifications to prevent the loss of gene diversity risking great public health concern for our population”, that is also eugenics.