Genetically engineering babies a “moral obligation”
Surely trying to ensure that your children have the best, or a good enough, opportunity for a great life is responsible parenting?
So where genetic selection aims to bring out a trait that clearly benefits an individual and society, we should allow parents the choice.
To do otherwise is to consign those who come after us to the ball and chain of our squeamishness and irrationality.
Indeed, when it comes to screening out personality flaws, such as potential alcoholism, psychopathy and disposition to violence, you could argue that people have a moral obligation to select ethically better children.
They are, after all, less likely to harm themselves and others.
If we have the power to intervene in the nature of our offspring – rather than consigning them to the natural lottery – then we should.
~ Oxford Professor Julian Savulescu, also the editor-in-chief of Journal of Medical Ethics, explaining the pluses of creating designer babies as science increasingly identifies personality markers, as quoted in The Telegraph, August 16
[HT: Kelli]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
So apparently ‘choosing’ our babies morals and personality traits through genetics, instead of teaching them is best, because crime and other personality issues have certainly decreased in the 40 years and 53 million abortions since Roe vs. Wade…mmmhmmmm……
What if they overlook something? Maybe there are other markers that they haven’t discovered that would offset the negatvie ‘personality’ traits or bring forth other positive traits?
Never forget the law of unintended consequences…who knows what could happen.
Does this mean that Stephen Hawkings (let alone myself) should not have existed?
Who gets to decide what the desirable quality traits are: the parents, the doctors, or government? Will parents truly be in a position to decide, or won’t they simply be at the mercy of the information they receive from the doctors? And won’t the doctors be subject to any government regulations? etc….
Most importantly, have they identified a marker that indicates when a baby would grow-up to be a ‘pro-choicer’? …. I might be interested afterall…
Who decides what markers to try to identify? Would they try to identify the marker that determines if a person would be religious?
Our worth is not determined by our abilities. Our worth is intrinsic in our humanity. So what happens if they discover a less than ideal genetic make up? They have an abortion? This cures nothing. This is starting to sound like Nazi Germany. We all know how that one turned out. There is no such thing as a genetically perfect human being.
“potential alcoholism”? So..someone doesn’t deserve to be born because he/she “might” become an alcoholic, sometime in the future???
Wow…I think this “professor” needs to get a refund for his Oxford “education”.
Obviously, having an expensive education does not necessarily make one “wise”.
*Yes. I’m aware I over-use quotation marks. I do it to emphasize the point I’m trying to make, because one cannot detect voice inflection on-line. ;)
“…you could argue that people have a moral obligation to select ethically better children.
They are, after all, less likely to harm themselves and others.”
So if you believe harming the child is okay through abortion, how can you argue harming themselves or others a bad thing? Better to fatally harm the child than risk the chance that they may harm themselves or others?
Don’t be stupid, be a smarty. Come and join the Nazi Party!
I got my sense of right and wrong from God and my parents. Who in turn, did the same prior from theirs. This is what is called ordered society and how it works lady. The Gal that made that statement is an imbecile and absolutely, should get a refund on that so called degree, but I suppose can’t since the cracker jack vendor is likely out of business if this is what’s they were producing from their school…..
Wow! This reminds me of the movie “I Am Legend”! A brilliant scientist is going to save the world with a cure-all vaccine for Cancer! What could be wrong with that? Zombies, that’s what.
I can’t believe this person is in charge of determining what is “ethical”. The foxes are guarding the hen house. That is why “There is no scientific consensus on when life begins.”-because some scientists have gone mad with power over life and death.
“Ethically better children”? Says who? That’s only a letter away from “ethnically better children” Again, says who?
Pamela: “I’m aware I over-use quotation marks. I do it to emphasize the point I’m trying to make, because one cannot detect voice inflection on-line.”
Technically, you’re not over-using them — you’re misusing them. ;-)
Try italics!
Quotations don’t indicate emphasis. They indicate that the conventional meaning of the word is being qualified by the speaker. But keeping this light, link over here and notice the insane number of comments. Some fun stuff in there.
Selective breeding / genetic manipulation exists in animal and plant sciences. Certain advances and unintended consequences resulted along the way. It is easy to find specimens that were bred for a specific trait / appearance but were deficient in another area i.e. susceptible to disease, genetic disorder, or were dumb as a post. Everytime mankind plays God by manipulating the environment, introducing new species where they don’t belong, etc. we get into trouble. The professor’s idea is an offshoot of darwinianism, which kicked off the whole eugenics movement.
There are two kinds of medical ethicists. One kind: people who are actually ethical. These are very few because a moral person perceives no motivation to devote the time it takes for the education to figure out what is obvious. Don’t kill people, and so on.
The rest, the majority, are the vanguard ushering in these brave new world ideas. They establish the arguments for physicians to do things simply because they can. Thte article that made a lot of news about post-delivery abortion came from a couple other medical ethicists.
Um… Welcome to Gattaca?
Seriously, *everyone* has some type of flaw. Holy cow, I have ADHD and have struggled with depression since childhood. Even if I weren’t unplanned (abort! abort! unplanned children will rruuuuiiiinnn your life!!!!)… under this type of ideology I wouldn’t have been good enough to be born anyway. Which one of us would have been “good enough” to be born? They can genetically engineer all they want. They still are not going to get the “master race” they’re looking for. God will have the last laugh, although I am sure He must be grieved that so many people think they can “make” a better child than He can. Foolishness.
There are pockets of people that have already been genetically engineering their offspring for many years, they do so through selective breeding, in an attempt to get only certain traits. These same offspring are the dumbest, most mindblowingly backwards hicks I’ve encountered in my life. They are docile and all, like good drones go to their cult church regularly and are used as pawns and stock to fill the leaders coffers. This is what results in tampering with God’s creation. It’s also proven that in breeds of all kinds, the ones with the strongest, healthiest traits are never pure breeds, but a mixture. The diversity in the genetic pool is an asset, bottom line.
Does this mean that they don’t think I’m good enough because I have a strong potential for alcoholism? Does this mean that I shouldn’t be around? That I should be aborted? I have to say, I much prefer being alive with a potential for alcoholism than dead. This is just creepy and very Nazi-ish to only want to have the perfect race. What will they call these “perfect” babies? Aryans?
How does Tay-Sachs or cystic fibrosis make people more likely to survive to breed to the next generation?
That’s not the question, Shoes. The question would be, which Central Planning Committee will be charged with enumerating the conditions parents are obliged to consent for modifications for, or be prosecuted under criminal law?
All this stuff sounds great until you actually begin to think through the implications.
When we’re driving down the road, we’re wise to look a few hundred yards ahead instead of merely at the bumper just in front of us.