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Fertility Clinic Bows To Pressure, Nixes Eye- and Hair-Color Screening
destinyland writes "A fertility service in L.A. and New York screens embryos for breast cancer, cystic fibrosis, and 70 other diseases — and lets couples pick the sex of their babies. But when their pre-implantation diagnostic services began including the baby's eye and hair color, even the Pope objected — and the Great Designer Baby Controversy began. '[W]e cannot escape the fact that science is moving forward,' the fertility service explained — before capitulating to pressure to eliminate the eye and hair color screenings."
I mean, if you can get just the kid you want...why not? What are the objections? Hell, when they can start letting you pick if you kid is going to be smart and/or athletic...are they gonna can that choice too?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
On the one hand, this is pre-implantation and thus does not require the abortion of a fetus - no harm no foul, right?. One the other hand, it could easily be argued that one is playing god when you begin screening embryos for superficial traits.
Of course, if you choose to make the second argument, then one would also be playing god when embryos are screened for diseases, and thus should be disallowed as well.
Actually outlawing sex selection doesn't solve the problem. Allowing it might lead to a more humane situation than what is currently going on.
skin color and such to come down the pike.
Of course, if they could prove that sexual preference is genetic I believe we will see some real outrage with "We can guarantee your baby will NOT be gay"
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
This and its more controlled forms would last for two or three generations tops. Eventually people will get pissed off enough to realize that its idiotic to let someones parents choose their child's looks based on what the popular culture of their parents finds beautiful and attractive, with no regard for the fact that none of the kids will be able to meet the criteria of beauty in their own popular culture. It will be like the quest for super thinness and super buffness times ten. Several generations with no selfesteem.
Someone is gonna go, "guys, seriously this isn't working, and we are all ugly too boot."
You mad
You are right, and I am glad that you will volunteer to be the person who has to die to prove whether or not a certain trait is hazardous to your health!
Me on the other hand, I will accept that I am warping the evolutionary chain in the hopes that I will be able to continue living...
The reality is that we have always been selecting and thus influencing evolution. For example why do you think women like older men? Survival of the fittest. In the old days you would have been lucky to make it to 40. If you got beyond that you were desirable since somehow your genes got you to the point where you were.
Or how about in cave times. Only those strongest and cruelest would survive since those would be the ones who would be spreading their genes with the most people.
Since I would most likely have died by the hand of somebody else (probably most of us on Slashdot would fit in that category) I for one approve of "meddling" with the "random" mutations.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Which is so hypocritical that it's absurd. Parents foist themselves and their children on the world and then try to persuade us that being a parent equates one to being a saint and that there is nothing more altruistic than xeroxing yourself a few times.
Yet they can't be bothered to do the right thing and, if they absolutely must have a diaper to change or a college tuition to pay, do it for some poor parentless soul out there that truly needs it *now*.
The hypocrisy of such people is simply astounding.
I agree. There are also some practical considerations. My wife and I are fairly intelligent people; and I sure most slashdotters would same the same thing about themselves. We therefore have high expectations for the natural children we have. We've decided to stop having our own children (don't really want to take care of babies); but we have looked into adoption. One of the concerns I had and do get addressed in some of the adoption classes; are what to expect about children that aren't naturally yours. This included, but was not limited to, "damage" from pre-existing families/homes; realistic scholastic expectations; and the idea of "ownership". Adoption isn't for everyone.
Using the Freedom of Speech while I still have it.
You mean the same genes that are making it really hard for you to have children?
Let's think about this for a moment....
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
What if its a government book that states you cannot have procedure X because you don't requirements Y, or Z? Or, you can have it, but not until political grouping A and B have sufficient opportunities first?
Religion or bureaucracy, does it really matter if the end result is the same?
The difference between religious and government rules is that the later is enforced at the point of a gun
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
But when their pre-implantation diagnostic services began including the baby's eye and hair color, even the Pope objected
I'm pretty sure the Pope was objecting the entire time. Last year, they even made it official company policy that IVF=abortion.
Moderators: Before moderating a comment Insightful/Informative, check to see if a child post has already refuted it.
Is "natural selection" even happening anymore in humans? When we were living in caves, and a baby was born with a major physical or mental defect, that baby was not able, or even permitted, to survive. Now, due to our increased technology and compassion, we can and will keep almost any baby alive by almost any means. Not that that is a bad thing, but i am stressing that there is no real natural selection happening in humans anymore.
We're selecting for a stronger motherhood instinct. Those that don't have it take birth control, and their lines go extinct. We're also selecting against logic and attention span. Those that have it choose education over family, and their lines go extinct. Any human characteristic that leads a person in this society to participate in "planned parenthood" is being winnowed out of our gene pool. We're selecting in favour of passionate people who have a lack of self control and rebel against the system.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Tons of people don't want children. Unfortunately, a disproportionate number of these people are on the more intelligent/capable end of the spectrum, genetically-speaking...
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
As a redhead ("carrot tops with pasty white skin and too many freckles" who was "mercilessly torment during the day") can I just say....
:-(
Damn! I was born 100 years to early!
When I look for a mate, I look for one with genes that are least likely to produce red-headed children. When I first heard about this company, I was pretty damn happy.
Screw natural selection!
Your post reminds me of a discussion in my genetics class. We were discussing deer populations and the class had all assumed that only the biggest and strongest would pass on their genes. We were then told to not discount the sneaky little bastard who knocked up one of the does while the two big guys were fighting. :)
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
CORRECTAMUNDO!!!
Evolution is defined as natural selection of random mutations. It's surprising just how many geeks, who should be very familiar with what "random" means, will still advocate the idea of genetic selection and manipulation of offspring. I personally think it's from reading too many sci-fi novels in which "genetic manipulation" results in supermen or the like.
Once our society begins selecting and/or rejecting offspring based on their genes, or we begin manipulating our genetic codes, evolution stops. We won't have moved into another kind of evolution. We won't be make our evolution more efficient. We'll have stopped evolving altogether, at least in the only way we understand the evolution of organism.
In technical terms, we will have moved humanity from a local random search to a heuristics based local search. The difference cannot be emphasized enough. Here we have a local random search for better organisms that has delivered incredible(literally to some) results over millions of years. Yet people are proposing replacing that system with heuristics that have no other qualification other than certain people think they will lead to improvement. Genetic manipulation advocates fail Optimisation 101.
Some will argue that parents have the right to procreate in any way they choose. But as I've advocated before, rights do not scale up. Just because it seems right that one person should be able to do something, you cannot just inductively apply that logic to the entire population. And when you grant a right, that's exactly who you grant it to. Everybody.
I'd liken genetic manipulation to interbreeding. Some people think it should be moral to marry your cousin or even sibling. They can even make a good case for why they should be entitled to do so. But if you scaled that right up to the entire populations, we'd all end up inbred, sickly and probably mentally retarded within a hundred or so years. Genetic selection promises much the same outcome, except genetic homogeneity will occur on a population wide scale.
Inductively scaling procreation rights up can easily lead us to a tall, trim, blue eyed, blond haired, heap of flu-ridden corpses. The very fact that this clinic offered such frivolities as eye and hair colour screening shows that this is exactly what will happen if we replace proven randomness with such vapid heuristics.
May the Maths Be with you!
The post above yours is 100% correct. Once a human sperm penetrates a human ova and they combine DNA they become a gamete. That is a human being.
Some may argue that it is not human because it does not look human. I argue appearance is no indicator. Look at photos of yourself as a baby, at three years old, eight years old, twenty years old, fifty years old, eighty years old, and so on. Appearance changes throughout your life cycle and cannot be used to define humanity.
I'm not so sure about DNA either. After all, if I use DNA as a measure of humanity I must question if someone with trisomy 21 is human. After all, such a person does not have 26 pairs of chromosomes, and by such a definition would not be human. There are also super-males and super-females to take into consideration. If we use chromosomal count as the indicator of humanity, would it be OK to kill someone who does not have the proper chromosomal count?
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
I argue with my wife about this all the time. She thinks I'm some kind if eugenics moster. I argue otherwise. I am not trying to shape humanity. I am trying to prevent shaping.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
What's wrong with trying to get the eye color or hair color you want?
There is a big downside: loss of genetic diversity. Having as wide a gene pool as possible is a very good idea if you want a species to survive the next serious pandemic. Limiting diversity for sensible reasons (like no genetic diseases) is fine because there is a clear, obvious benefit. Limiting diversity because you want your baby to have blue eyes and blonde hair is not because there is no real benefit. Choosing a baby's gender is even worse since it can lead to sever social problems if one sex is prefered over the other.
Adopting has many more problems which you're sugar coating over. It's obvious you have no idea what you're talking about.
Adopting is expensive, very expensive compared to IVF. Secondly it's difficult to adopt a baby because everyone wants to do that. Thirdly if you adopt a kid who is +4 years old they're most likely going to be fucked in the head (why do you think they're in the adoption process otherwise?).
My friend has taken care of many different children over the decades which pass through the adoption process. It's not like anything you're making it out to be.