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UK Report Suggests Designer Offspring
chromakey writes "Several news agencies are reporting that the UK is considering allowing parents undergoing fertility treatment to select the sex of their unborn babies." Also covered in Q&A format by the BBC. From the article: "At the moment in the UK, sex selection is only permitted if there are strict medical reasons. This could be because there is a serious sex-linked disorder in the family, such as Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy."
last year I had a research assignment based on modifying our dna and transgenics, and it's quite an interesting subject, i won't be so arrogant as to link to that assignment, but I will post links to some of the articles i referred to..
u mans.htm l #transgenics , 1.html
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Today-Food-Tomorrow-H
http://www.fda.gov/cvm/index/fdavet/1999/july.htm
http://www.ifgene.org/proscons.htm
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0317,baard,43560
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1640
and no, i did not RTFA.
Remember children, all generalizations are wrong.
China already has a problem with this already. Due to their one-child policy, many families had sex-based abortions. In particular, since sons were much more popular, they would abort daughters. Now, China has about 120 men for every 100 women.
This might not seem like such a serious problem on the surface, but it really is. Among other things, China now has an extremely active underground wife selling system, in comparison to other countries, at least. Since there just aren't enough Chinese women to go around, men are willing to break laws and pay high prices to get a wives.
It seems like that the difference in population also makes discrimination more likely. There's no clear evidence on how the discrimination would work out, but discrimination is usually more common in disparate populations.
Well I must say that I'm puzzled. I always believed that such selection is technically impossible. Apparently I was wrong -- it is feasible but illegal (at least in the UK). From the observation I think that there would be an enormous market for some gender determinating pill. I know many people who recently became parents, and having a daughter instead of a son was a big problem for at least couple of them. Of course, one can ponder the social implications -- if everybody decided to have a boy, then in the next generation it would be obviously convenient to be a woman.
Just to be a Devil's Advocate, I can think of at least one reason. That would be the inevitable inbalance that would occur in the sexes. In China right now, with it's one-child policy, there is a large inbalance in the number of male versus female children. There will be thousands (millions?) of young Chinese men that will not be able to find a mate, simply because there aren't enough women around.
The inability these men will have in finding a mate could have huge negative consequences for the entire Chinese Society. These negative consequences would be one reason why government should be able to prevent you from choosing a male over a female child.
In developing countries, there is already a serious imbalance in male/female ratio, with about 800-900 females per 1000 males. Fortunately, the trend is a little bit reversed in developed countries. If the designer babies techniques come to developing countries, it will further push the female/male ratio down.
One would assume that with fewer women, the women will have additional power, but in male-dominated societies (in many developing countries), lower number of women may in fact lead to more oppression of women (they may end up viewed as "precious property").
It is very scary.
S
It's happening in China. One child -- it had better be a boy to carry on the familiy name.
There are some potentially severe consequences to increasing the male population. One is that we can anticipate that a country with surplus males may well choose to be militarily more aggressive, since male cannon fodder will be a relatively low value commodity.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
But there are countries, or rather cultures where girl babies are given up for adoption until a son is born. Or the family just keeps getting bigger until a son is born. Or a woman who has not born any male children is divorced or disgraced. Those are societies where getting the gender you want on the first try would be a net benefit to all concerned. Aint technology wonderful? If it doesn't simply make our lives easier, it can at least make our stupidities less burdensome!
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Well unfortunately the dividing line on free choice isn't always easy. The queston is how much free choice? It's never simple making a decision on where to place the line, and many people always believe the line should be in one direction or another. As an EXTREME analogy, let's say I decided to say thus:
"There are differing opinion on the ethics of jihad. Some of these opinions borrow from religions teachings. We should allow terrorists free access to all services and armaments, since doing so allows people to decide on ethics (whuch may depend on religion) themselve."
OBviously not a legitimate argument due to danger to life, but it DOES apply to bioethics. At what point can one really say "I simply have different ethics than you." and it really becomes. "I shall do as I please with disregard to the freedoms of others." Because, once babies become designed, the rest of us must compete agsinst them, in all aspects of life.
The problem with your argument is that religious fanatics are not just applying their ethics to themselves. They are most eager to force their ethical views down your throat because in case of abortion [they think] they value everyone's life infinitely. In case of designer babies you become a heretic for wanting to "play God", and therefore must burn at the stake. Surely, we can't allow science to keep encroaching on God's domain, no sir! If this continues, there wouldn't be anything left to attribute to God's work. Oh, wait...
Look, suppose we end up with an excess of males in some generation. Then in that generation women will be scarcer and in effect more valuable and it will then become more desirable to have female babies. If left to choose we people probably wouldn't end up at exactly a 50-50 split but within a generation or two it would probably equilibriate at something reasonable.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
If we now allow it for IVF, what stops couples from resorting to IVF so they can choose the sex and more? For all we know, it Gattica, everybody not having "faith babies" was using IVF. If millions of couples start using IVF, what keeps us from a situation where every OB doctor practices IVF on the side, and once it is available and many want it, we legalize it and have a gradual societial evolution to a Gattica like society? Once you open the box, there is likely no going back, because if future earning potiential starts to be based on genetics, parents that don't will be seen as bad parents, and who wants to make that choice?
I also think hands off on the gender decision.
I am sure the masses will make some choices that cause problems.
But, I don't think the overlords/government are the solution.
On the question of parenting tests.
How many young people are ready to be parents ?
Too many only start being responsible once the parenthood begins.
Some people at prenancy, birth or soon after.
Education ? Whose opinion is right ?
Cultural, educational, financial, & lots of other differences are there.
Are you sure you want the political process to tell you how to raise your child ?
gay, vegans, right wing bible thumpers?
Just think about all the issues we wrangle with today.
You want to offer your kids, (our future) to that ?
I have been there, and I really do not think it is a good choice.
My son is currently failing high school, living with his mother.
He was expected to graduate was this year, but grades & required work
are not happening.
He was getting much better grades while living with me (10+years).
But, the government got involved when he started stealing, truancy,
and being as big of a problem as he could be at home.
And they got involved because I punished him for his behaviour.
The house rules were clear & simple.
He went out of his way to break them.
And simple groundings, talking, allowance reduction never slowed him down.
Now rather than trying to steal, lie & avoid doing any homework to
play nintendo/computer games with his "friends" at my house.
He runs around dirty, stinky in clothes that are the same, avoiding
his mother & homework while playing games without his friends.
And his mother does very little to change think, but is planning on
kicking him out at 18 in less than 5 months.
He will be a good candidate for the minimum job/welfare state.
Probally a stint in the armed services, jail time, 2 or 3 divorces,
and then he might understand a little.
This is my opinion based on what little I know and understand of the rumors and lies Thanks, Randal
Personally, I have no problem with parents selecting the gender of their child. In countries with no particular gender bias, this will have no effect on the overall makeup of the species. In countries where there is a gender bias, there will be a shortage of the `inferior' gender in the next generation. This will (hopefully) have two effects:
- The `inferior' gender will no longer be perceived as inferior, since they are in greater demand. This demand will put them into more positions of power (or, at least, influence), which should help to correct the existing gender bias.
- The majority of parents of children of the constrained gender will be those who had sufficient intelligence to realise this was the outcome of gender selection. Thus they are statistically more likely to be more intelligent than members of their gender in the preceding generation. As such, they are likely to choose more intelligent mates. If we are incredibly lucky, then this will result in the least intelligent segment of the population being quietly removed from the gene pool.
So, maybe choosing gender is the first step towards choosing IQ.I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Disclaimer: this post may offend some of you. I have no problems with children who have special needs and I respect their parents. However, I am willing to do anything possible to end up as one of those parents.
My girlfriend and I were talking about genetic selection of babies. She is a religious person and at first she did not approve the idea of selecting a child based on its genes. However, this changed right away after she started working some special ed. kids.
Let's call my girlfriend Ann. Ann is a therapist; she works for public schools in order to help kids with different aspects of education. Some kids need help with handwriting, some kids need assistance due to injuries, some kids need a little push when it comes to physical education. Ann helps them out. However, there is a growing number of kids with genetic disorders who need extreme help and who are in the school system. These are by-products of tobacco and alcohol companies, kids of ex-drug users or just unfortunate parents. Nobody wants them. Nobody wants to deal with them. Because our public schools are designed to accept everyone, these kids end up in an environment that can't really fit their needs. Parents drop them off and let Ann deal with all this shit. The same parents are ready to sue the living shit out of the school system if their kids do not progress. Moreover, not a single public school that I know is able to accomodate kids with special needs due to financial restraints. Would I want my kids to have a chance of living that life? Two words: fuck that.
After working with many special ed kids for years, Ann and I have concluded that we'll screen our potential babies for genetic disorders because we simply do not want to deal with a kid who has Down's Syndrome or something along those lines. If there is a possibility of a genetic disorder, why not eliminate it? I do not want to end up with a kid who acts like Timmy from South Park; the society can live without such a kid just fine as well. The school system where Ann works spends a lot of time on kids who can barely tie their shoes. Some of those kids will lose their skills and degenerate. It is so sad to see those poor souls... I would hate to have a child like that. A child that can't really understand, a child that can't be a part of the mainstream life, a child that will be always a second class citizen. As somebody who had a speech problem as a kid, I know what it feels like when everybody makes fun of you and I saw only the tip of the iceberg! I would hate to see my kid to go through numerous humiliations, classifications, doctors, special ed instructors and then endup earning minimum wage at some sweatshop or Burger King.
The bottom line is that this is up to you. I choose life, but life that is capable of living and not suffering. After what I have seen and heard from the people who do with special kids for living, I made up my mind.
Along these lines, technological advancement will eventually give us the choice of whether or not we continue along the path of evolution naturally or do we augment it.
If there were genetic mutations that we could inject into ourselves that would be able to prevent cancer, cure disabilties, and enhance our lifespan is it really better to deny ourselves such things?
Once humans master DNA, the next step beyond that is to make us "better", to remove the defects that plague our genes, to increase our intelligence.
Is it not good for us to increase the quality of life for ourselves and humaniy?
Or is it better to let thousands suffer and die due to defects that will be cured "in due time" by nature?
~X~
~X~
and so if you filled the streets of Iraq with (gun-toting) American cops it would be any better?
If there were enough to spare? Yes. Absolutely. Unfortunately there are two problems with this 1 - there aren't enough to do that, and 2 - Police officers are civilians, and aren't under any obligation to have to go where their country tells them to.
The whole flaw with the war in Iraq was the lack of understanding at the top that winning against an army and winning over a population are two entirely different things. And, being fundamentalists themselves, the people running the Executive Branch right now are rather blind to how truly nasty theocrats can be (they view themselves as virtuous and don't realize how nasty their ilk can be). So they never understood that if you remove the secular oppressive regime in a country with an excessively fundamentalist populace, a religious oppressive regime will want to take its place, and will fight bitterly to the last man to attempt to do so. Attempst to be all-inclusive and include them in the process won't help because they don't want power comesurate with their numbers. They want power over all.
I was opposed to the Iraq situation not because it was wrong to oust Saddam (although that's not the reason Bush gave in the first place despite his historical revisionism to the contrary), but because you have to do so with an understanding of how deep of a mess you are stepping into. Bush had no clue, and it was obivous to me he had no clue when he ignored his general's pleas for more troops to hold territory and only gave them enough troups to fight defenders, but not enough to patrol the occupied areas. This was way back in the beginning before they'd even reached bagdad.
Yes, police officers would do a better job, but there aren't enough of them. The next best step is military police (MP's) - this attack should have been accompanied by a massive training program for more MP's - becuae THAT is what we need.
I was opposed to going into Iraq half-assed. But now that it's done, it would be stupid and premature to pull out and leave without a working governmental infrastructure in place. One problem the American public has is they they don't realize there are only two viable choices when going to war (and occupation) - don't do it at all, or do it will all you can all at once. Anything halfway between is a recipie for disaster.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.