On Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 2:21 PM William Heath <wgheath@gmail.com wrote:
Nathan the argument is one the Catholics have made. If u have a malfunction do u throw away the child?
Well the idea posed in the article says nothing about abortion or throwing away a child, it is about choosing alleles so the question of abortion or reduced fitness decreases over time.
I think they have a point. Human beings are not animals and should have default worth,
I believe humans are animals, and I believe all animals have default worth. Seems most people do too, which is why societies have valued them for everything from food to labor to [forced] companions (I think having pets is an ethically questionable practice).
making humans a commodity in this way can be ethically dangerous.
Commodity? You mean like the slave trade? I don't see how reducing personally/socially undesirable characteristics comes anywhere close to that. This is about reducing disease, enhancing fitness, and personal choice. I see it simply as an extension of dating 1000s or more partners, having to do 23andme or sequencing on them all, and finally choosing the one that fits best genotypically and phenotypically as a mate. (And yes before I mated, my partner and I both had SNP analysis done years before, as well as early-stage next-gen sequencing on the fetus using maternal blood to check for chromosomal imbalance)
Do not get me wrong, I would love to see it happen, just do not know how to cross the moral chasm to get there.
Seems the moral chasm is wrong though. It seems harmful to reduce peoples' choice to rid their spawn of known bad traits. Like what if two mates were both carriers for a malady, it seems morally wrong to prevent access from them to correct this. Or if some poor farmer could benefit from a double-muscle child, to help raise the family from poverty through easier labor on the farm. My guess is one stronger child would be less metabolic/calorie strain on the family than two normal strength children, not to mention less mental strain to raise them.
Cost seems like a bogus rebuttal, the answer is to make costs for treatment low enough for anyone... This IS biology which already is super cheap. Big pharma is expensive because it's all about treating symptoms, not fixing root cause issues.
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