Or would you rather that they just weren't a cripple?
That would appear to be the point of this.
(wellgroomedwookiee is a filthy-minded hobgoblin, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 14:42, 1 reply, 16 years ago)

No.
The point of this eugenic approach is that such sufferers would not be born. If it was simply a case of sorting out cripples* that would be fine. I'd rather have a crippled genius than no genius. Then again maybe after we'd weeded out all the cripples we could have our geniuses created by helpful geneticists. That would be cool.

*cripple in this context used as a catch-all for genetically variant from perfect.
(porkylips looks better as the sun goes down., Thu 15 Apr 2010, 14:47, Reply)

you are pretty much assuming that genius is genetic there
when there isn't really any proof of that

or that the process of having lived as a cripple creates genius, which is also not really the case.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 14:54, Reply)

it's linked to the abortion idea
of throwing the baby out with the bathwater in terms of removing the disability/engineering it to requirement. I love that I could use that motto
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 14:58, Reply)

Not really.
Just stating (in an obtuse way) that existence and your state of existence is a lottery and obviously defined by both nature and nurture. TBH any interference is ok by me as it simply is another variable in the draw. Just trying out a different tack that no-one had mentioned per se.
(porkylips looks better as the sun goes down., Thu 15 Apr 2010, 15:01, Reply)

WGW is right here.
But you do raise an interesting concern.

OK - so you've got two eggs or two embryos in a petri dish and only one can be implanted. One carries a gene for an undesirable characteristic (CF, athsma, whatever: it doesn't matter). Choosing one will mean that the other never comes to birth.

But if your choice is between eggs, then there's noone there to suffer the harm. If it's between embryos, then one was going to be discarded anyway - so, in this case, the world is no worse off than it would be.

The point is this: if your only chance of coming to exist at all is by the chance meeting of a particular sperm and egg - and it is - it's difficult to claim that you've been harmed by not coming to exist at all.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 15:18, Reply)

The claim is not of harm but of future effect.
I suppose that once you accept that taking action is not going to adversely affect likely futures then everything is fine.
(porkylips looks better as the sun goes down., Thu 15 Apr 2010, 15:26, Reply)

If you read the article,
the point of this procedure is that you take a fertilised egg that would otherwise produce a cripple, and make it produce a non-cripple. Sure, it requires fiddling about in a lab so the kid isn't conceived "naturally", but there's no weeding out of cripple embryos, the cripple embryos just get fixed.
(wellgroomedwookiee is a filthy-minded hobgoblin, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 15:19, Reply)

It will, however, lead to the winnowing out of "undesirable" genes.
Which is a bit of a conceit. Gattaca was a crap film but it did raise a valid point. Who is anyone to decide what should and shouldn't be in our gene pool? Conversely if you can make something "better" do you not have a duty to do so. I'll leave this sort of thinking stuff to Enzyme if it's ok with you. It's too much for my brain and there is no answer really. It's all subjective.
(porkylips looks better as the sun goes down., Thu 15 Apr 2010, 15:24, Reply)

I'm not sure.
If you can avoid unnecessary suffering, you might well have at least a prima facie duty to do so. And as for the winnowing out of undesirable genes: well, there're at least some that it'd be good to lose.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 16:04, Reply)