Unfortunately, the Slaughterhouse Cases already determined that a state-run cartel can push out individuals not meeting specific criteria.
Such a right to "sustain ones life through labor" simply does not exist at the Federal level... Now, they are pushing this under the Texas constitution, and I don't know for sure what the Texas constitution says about it, however likely, just like Louisiana, they probably don't guarentee a person's right to work in a particular field.
We require licenses of many different professions, doctors, medical professionals, accountants even. Sorry, but unfortunately, saying "I have plenty of happy customers that are willing to have me repair their computers" doesn't justify this anymore than a doctor practicing medicine without a license can say "but they're totally accepting of my care, even though I'm unlicensed."
I hate to say this, but these people probably don't have a single leg to stand on legally, because this has all been through the courts before... of course, I could be wrong, and things could change. But I don't expect it to.
If Texas ruled you had the right to do any work between two knowing and consenting adults, then that would lead to situations potentially opening the way to prostitution (which I don't think should be illegal) or circumvention of licensing standards for other professions. Why do I need government permission to be a cop? I can pull over anyone I want, and by telling me that I can't, the government is making me unable to sustain my life through the labor of my choosing.
I think the biggest issue here, is that police and other criminology people are concerned that if a computer tech stumbles across illegal information on a computer, that since they are not a licensed private investigator, the evidence cannot in any way be used. Even if say, it's for a child-pornography case. "Your evidence was siezed improperly, sorry, but it's excluded, next time do things the right way!"
Factory Prius: 0-60mph is about 12 seconds (I'll give you 10 just for giggles) Factory Katana 600: 0-60 is about 3 seconds (I'll give it 4 just for giggles)
Ok, so I've hyped everything in favor of the Prius, and it's still 6 seconds behind me on acceleration.
If I only ever drove at the speeds that Priuses get 48 MPH, then I'd probably get over 50, maybe near 60. Although, I enjoy having a speedy vehicle, that uses gas like a hybrid.
Holy crap... did you just totally miss my intentions? This post was designed "let's put things as much as possible in favor of the Hybrid, and I'll show you that the Hybrid STILL isn't worth it."
Yes, it's a constant drizzling rain. But when you're riding a motorcycle, it's really annoying. So, most people end up not riding one. The going joke here, is "if you're not willing to ride your bike in the rain, then you'll never get to ride."
I agree with just about everything you say. Actually, I'd say that the majority of people are average intelligence, if everyone were as smart as Einstein, well, then that would be the average intelligence.
You're right though, when I worked for a big company that wanted to protect its assets and required people to use key-cards to enter, almost no one actually followed the rule, "if they don't have a badge, don't let them in." Once, there was a guy who wanted to follow me in, and I kept telling him, "no, you need to go to the front office", after he finally trudged off, I realized that I even knew who the guy was. I was just so entrained with security protocol, that I wasn't going to let him in without a badge... no matter who he was.
Of course, that's also because he might not be working for the company anymore... people get fired, and disappear from a company pretty much overnight sometimes.
I do have a choice, and that's why I started riding a motorcycle. I only use a car now in order to get groceries, and only then when I need A LOT of groceries.
Does it mean I end up driving in crazy rain (like Seattle is known for)? Yeah, it does, but I bought good gear. If you want to talk about beating the pants off of a hybrid, my 600cc motorcycle cost me $2.8k, and gets about 47mpg at 80mph (I don't even think hybrids can DO 80mph). At that rate, paying off the extra $19k that the hybrid costs? Wow, that would never happen... and $19k can buy you some REALLY REALLY good gear. In the winter a lot of people asked me "aren't you cold?" and my response is, "no, although if I stop moving, I get REALLY hot."
Of course, I also have a 250cc that gets 60mpg, and I bought for just $2k... but I don't tend to drive it to work (even though I probably should, gas just isn't THAT expensive yet.)
I was talking to my ex-boyfriend saying, "you know, I started riding a bike because gas was killing me... it's just getting harder and harder for me to stop." Also, I mentioned to him that my car is a bit of my "red-headed step child" of a vehicle. It hasn't been touched in about two weeks or so...
The GP has a point, if the price really were higher than what the market could bear we would be seeing a lot more Americans and politicians supporting efforts to reduce the consumption by whatever means necessary.
She didn't say "what the market will bear" she said "what people are willing to pay" which are two entirely different things. You bear something under duress. We've built our society in such a way that a lot of people have no choice to cut back on oil consumption, so the market can bear a lot more than it would if people were acting purely of their wills.
I corrected it for you... god, forget it... maybe I should just give up... *sigh* Maybe we could get slashdot to make our posts look definitively different and we'd stop getting assumed to be guys...
New Scion xD: 27/33 MPG, $15,100 New Prius: 48/45 MPG, $21,500
Let's give it best case for the hybrid. Prius: $21k and 48 MPG Scion xD: $16k and 27MPG
That's $5k difference in price, and 21MPG difference. So, the Prius uses about 2 gallons per 100 miles, and the Scion xD uses 3.7 gallons per 100 miles. So, per 100 miles, you would save 1.7 gallons with the Prius. With gas at a presumptive price of $10/gallon (yeah, I know crazy... I used to use $5/gallon, but it seems less unrealistic anymore.) that means the Prius saves $17 per 100 miles. At $5k price difference, the Prius would pay itself off after about 290*100 miles, so uh... 29,000 miles.
So, we get 2 years or so. But remember, this is heavily (if not ridiculously) in the Prius's favor. Presuming we use more likely values, the Prius saves just about 1 gallon per 100 miles. At $5/gallon gas, that means it would pay itself off after 1000*100 miles. Or 100,000. How many cars do you know of that are at 100,000 miles?
I think my biggest concern here is against explicitly requiring certain selection criteria, and explicitly promoting certain selection criteria.
The requirement problem becomes a situation of the government setting out criteria that its citizens will not have. Say, by saying that "if XY criterion is met, then the embryo MUST be destroyed," then you present a questionable situation akin to the intentional post-birth selection criteria of intelligence used by certain parties that I don't want to name because of Goodwin's Law.
The promotion problem is similar. If the situation ends up where "we'll give you XY, if you destroy an embryo with XY condition", then you end up with almost an implicit requirement. People will typically choose an incentive over the other option... that's because the government sets the incentive high enough that someone WANTS it more than the other option. Imagine a law saying "if you destroy an embryo that doesn't have blue eyes and blond hair, then we'll give you $5,000." (or some other number sufficient for you to start seriously thinking that it's worth it)... racial purity through incentives?:(
Bad decisions are made all the time. A lot of time, companies will listen to consumers if enough of their customers scream and holler.
Situations where you end up with bone-headed decisions get pushed through despite what the consumer thinks are places where consumers are essentially hostages anyways. For instance, Microsoft... "What? Are you just going to mass migrate all of IBM from Windows? HAH! We'd like to see you try. We'll talk to you again in a week, after you realize it's financial suicide." or "What? You're going to Linux/Mac? Who cares, we have IBM, bitch." Also, gas stations, and oil companies, "You don't want to pay $4.40 a gallon? Hah, let's see you not use gas then..."
The later really bugs me a lot... it's like every year the oil company has been saying things like "we're only making 7% profit, which is the average for a company like ours in a different business." But what they don't see is that they're making a profit in a situation where they SHOULDN'T. Your costs are exceeding the price we're willing to pay... the only reason we still are is because we don't have a choice.
There were a bunch of large companies in IT that imploded because they weren't making money, and this happens all over the place (where companies don't have hostage consumers), so the question should be, "do you deserve to be making 7% profit even though your model is technically failing?"
As far as I know, the restrictions are that something has to show a more or less "moral offense" of pain. Crickets are certainly exempt from "no pain" rules about lab treatment, as are lobsters.
For awhile, Octopodes were excluded too, but then we noticed that they color change based on pain, and they get really upset about it. Subsequently, they're now on the list of things you can't inflict unnecessary pain upon in the name of science.
Animals have rights by virtue of their consciousness and ability to suffer.
Unfortunately that's true. I say unfortunately because both consciousness and ability to suffer are not easy to demonstrate.
There is no evidence that embryos have either of these traits.
That's also true. But actually I don't think we defined 'human rights' on this basis and so it's not really a good enough reason alone to allow deliberate destruction of embryos.
It is very hard to draw a line. This is my point, and whatever line is drawn will get moved. For all their annoyances, the old versions of current big religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) with their simplistic moral codes had it all worked out. Things were just simply wrong and it didn't matter how you dressed them up to look pretty, they were still wrong.
If we are going to go forward with these new areas of therapy and medical intervention, then we have to be big enough to stop being all nice about it and be open about our intentions. Let the public see us for what we are. Let there be no restrictions on this practice and let's stop pandering to moralistic types on the sidelines who don't want it in the first place and so don't have a place in telling us how to regulate it, since we've already gone down the road.
Agreed. Animals have a protection against unnecessary pain, as long as that animal is demonstrated to feel pain. (I recall Octopodes recently were added to that list, it sucks that we get there precisely by torturing them. >_)
We've never defined human rights on the basis of "deserving it", human rights should be by their definition extended to every human (best definition I have for that is: "a human is an animal born from some arbitrary amount of human genetic code" I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine what arbitrary amount counts.) Part of the reason I have trouble with these anti-immigration laws and such is that it makes one person inferior to another based on an arbitrary factor of nationality.
I totally agree that it's hard to draw the line. And while I'm not arguing for drawing a line and saying "never over this line", more so draw a line in the sand and say "until we better, please try not to go over this line, unless you're willing to accept the consequences."
I saw a thing about a woman who had some 200 surgeries on her face for plastic surgery. It looked like hamburger, and it was almost sloughing off. I looked at her, and said, "it's hard for me to have sympathy for you, because those are the KNOWN consequences of excessive plastic surgery". It's like with smokers. I talk to them, and I'm all, "you know that could give you cancer right?" and they look at me like it's the millionth time they've heard it, and say "uh, yeah, I know." and while they're expecting some long drawn out argument, I end it with, "good, just making sure you know the consequences." and never bother them about it again.
I didn't define down syndrome as "good", I just defined it as not bad enough to warrant needless destruction of embryos.
They tend to grow up reasonably happy, and live lives that are worth protecting. By shutting them out, just because they'll never have a life "as good as ours", well... crap, where do you draw the line with that argument?
I talked about being able to select "children" based on cosmetic features. My argument applies whether the child is selected at the embryonic stage, during gestation, or after birth.
Down Syndrome is a direct genetic result of an embryo then later child developing while having a second copy or part of chromosome 21, instead of just the normal two.
"human qualities" with "very complex random variables"? Down syndrome fits perfectly in the range of what I'm talking about. Simply by addition of a part of chromosome 21, you get a child with "down syndrome"...
Are you really just retarded? Or are you on a semantic rant against people who insist on considering a child that they intend to raise as a "prospective child"?
As noted above, I think it shouldn't be prohibited, just restricted. A good way of restricting it is to require the person to pay for it themselves.
If you want to dismiss a child for cosmetic reasons, fine, that's your right. However, you don't have a right to have government funds, or health care funds pay for it.
(Unless the "cosmetic" feature would cause serious health problems.)
Handsome superficial men already prefer to marry pretty superficial women. Thus they select for pretty children.
If you want to go along the road of worrying about how parents will select their embryos then I posit that this is not morally different from telling people that they must not marry because the stupid+stupid combo would produce children of unacceptable stupidity.
However, if we do go down the road of banning embryo selection then I'm all for going the final mile and preventing idiots from having children. Any system that would have prevented Bush from being born is a system that I would be very enthusiastic about.
While I'm all for an exclusion requiring that all children who would come out like George W. Bush be aborted before birth, at the same time, I can't really justify preventing "idiots" from breeding. It seems like such an arbitrary thing to me, and I know even as smart as I am, I've done some totally bone-headed idiotic stuff in my life.
As noted above... this is more so about what the GOVERNMENT should be doing. If it's a cosmetic thing, then you can cover the costs, the government shouldn't cover cosmetic issues (unless they have serious medical complications.)
A good example, is a child who had a deformed head, and was at risk for serious brain problems because of it. The child received "cosmetic" surgery to repair the deformity, and the health insurance refused to cover it, because it was otherwise a "cosmetic" procedure.
The parents sued, had the doctors on their side, and all of medical evidence. It was determined that the insurance company doesn't have the ability to discriminate against a procedure if that procedure is being done for non-cosmetic reasons, even if it is a cosmetic surgery.
Example, you type the embryo, and find that were it to develop, it would be a girl and she would have huge enormously overweight breasts. Since health insurance covers breast reduction in those cases, it should be endorsed, because even though it's a "cosmetic" procedure, the reason it were done is in order to prevent back problems, leg problems, and all the fun stuff that women with large breasts have to deal with.
The role we are taking is closer to random mutation.
"The question is, how do you prevent people picking a child simply based on arbitrary cosmetic reasons?"
why is that a problem?
Primary reason? People are bigotted jerks. A family of a black person and a white person could potentially keep discarding children until they got one that wouldn't end up looking black.
In a way, I guess I don't think that it's WRONG, it just shouldn't be government endorsed. Say, if you make an in vitro baby, and find that it has a fundamental genetic flaw that the government recognizes, then the lab or whatever should be able to provide you a "refund" we'll call it. Meanwhile, if you choose to arbitrarily discard a child, then you don't get a refund. You don't have to go through the whole cost of raising the child, but you still have to pay on your own for the costs of fertilization and testing for cosmetic traits.
In the Netherlands, my sister had a baby, she got an ultrasound on the government's dollar to ensure that nothing was seriously wrong with the baby. Now, from that same Ultrasound they were able to identify the gender of the child, however they would not tell my sister, unless she paid for the test.
Essentially, while the test to look for serious complications was in the government's best interest, the sexing of the baby doesn't qualify as anything that the government should or should not endorse.
Won't somebody please think of the socially-inept overgrown children!?!
Oh, you're not going to start with the the whole "think of the children" thing are you? Now, I know I'm supposed to have mothering instincts (and well, yes, I do) but seriously... I know BS when I see it.
You socially-inept overgrown children can just learn to deal with it... perhaps you might find that you enjoy the company of a girl...
Not true... animals have some "rights" conferred to them... c.f. that football guy who got in trouble for hurting dogs.
There is a line... if it would cause serious harm to a child that develops from it, yeah, that's not cool. Basically, you should be able to choose to discard a child, where allowing them to live would be considered cruel. Uh... down syndrome is questionable in this category (they enjoy life, they're just a burden upon parents... I would say, "sorry, not a disqualifiable condition) while cyclopia is definitely in this area (cyclopia typically causes spontaneous abortion on its own, and animals/humans born with cyclopia typically don't live very long at all.) as would something like severe osteogenesis imperfecta (weak bones, say like Mr Glass? they tend to die very early in life because of traumas) although non-severe osteogenesis imperfecta? Nope, sorry. It's just a medical inconvenience, not a medically cruel condition.
The issue comes, if we find a gene that leads to an increased risk of homosexuality (a lot of personality traits seem to be governed by genes, and conditions, and don't show a perfect correspondence, like say, being able to roll your tongue) Would a fundamentalist family be able to dismiss this, because they thinks it's a religious sin?
I totally understand where you're coming from, and for the most part, I have to agree. However, there's a fundamental error in making the sweeping statement "no line at all", because people can be excessively cruel in this world, and I'd hate to see what kind of in vitro selection criteria the Nazis would have devised....
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Unfortunately, the Slaughterhouse Cases already determined that a state-run cartel can push out individuals not meeting specific criteria.
Such a right to "sustain ones life through labor" simply does not exist at the Federal level... Now, they are pushing this under the Texas constitution, and I don't know for sure what the Texas constitution says about it, however likely, just like Louisiana, they probably don't guarentee a person's right to work in a particular field.
We require licenses of many different professions, doctors, medical professionals, accountants even. Sorry, but unfortunately, saying "I have plenty of happy customers that are willing to have me repair their computers" doesn't justify this anymore than a doctor practicing medicine without a license can say "but they're totally accepting of my care, even though I'm unlicensed."
I hate to say this, but these people probably don't have a single leg to stand on legally, because this has all been through the courts before... of course, I could be wrong, and things could change. But I don't expect it to.
If Texas ruled you had the right to do any work between two knowing and consenting adults, then that would lead to situations potentially opening the way to prostitution (which I don't think should be illegal) or circumvention of licensing standards for other professions. Why do I need government permission to be a cop? I can pull over anyone I want, and by telling me that I can't, the government is making me unable to sustain my life through the labor of my choosing.
I think the biggest issue here, is that police and other criminology people are concerned that if a computer tech stumbles across illegal information on a computer, that since they are not a licensed private investigator, the evidence cannot in any way be used. Even if say, it's for a child-pornography case. "Your evidence was siezed improperly, sorry, but it's excluded, next time do things the right way!"
Factory Prius: 0-60mph is about 12 seconds (I'll give you 10 just for giggles)
Factory Katana 600: 0-60 is about 3 seconds (I'll give it 4 just for giggles)
Ok, so I've hyped everything in favor of the Prius, and it's still 6 seconds behind me on acceleration.
If I only ever drove at the speeds that Priuses get 48 MPH, then I'd probably get over 50, maybe near 60. Although, I enjoy having a speedy vehicle, that uses gas like a hybrid.
I have my sports vehicle, and my gas, too!
Holy crap... did you just totally miss my intentions? This post was designed "let's put things as much as possible in favor of the Hybrid, and I'll show you that the Hybrid STILL isn't worth it."
God...
Yes, it's a constant drizzling rain. But when you're riding a motorcycle, it's really annoying. So, most people end up not riding one. The going joke here, is "if you're not willing to ride your bike in the rain, then you'll never get to ride."
I agree with just about everything you say. Actually, I'd say that the majority of people are average intelligence, if everyone were as smart as Einstein, well, then that would be the average intelligence.
You're right though, when I worked for a big company that wanted to protect its assets and required people to use key-cards to enter, almost no one actually followed the rule, "if they don't have a badge, don't let them in." Once, there was a guy who wanted to follow me in, and I kept telling him, "no, you need to go to the front office", after he finally trudged off, I realized that I even knew who the guy was. I was just so entrained with security protocol, that I wasn't going to let him in without a badge... no matter who he was.
Of course, that's also because he might not be working for the company anymore... people get fired, and disappear from a company pretty much overnight sometimes.
Certainly they're working on it... but a company isn't going to quit windows cold turkey...
but then, XP is giving them an excellent upgrade path compared to Vista...
I do have a choice, and that's why I started riding a motorcycle. I only use a car now in order to get groceries, and only then when I need A LOT of groceries.
Does it mean I end up driving in crazy rain (like Seattle is known for)? Yeah, it does, but I bought good gear. If you want to talk about beating the pants off of a hybrid, my 600cc motorcycle cost me $2.8k, and gets about 47mpg at 80mph (I don't even think hybrids can DO 80mph). At that rate, paying off the extra $19k that the hybrid costs? Wow, that would never happen... and $19k can buy you some REALLY REALLY good gear. In the winter a lot of people asked me "aren't you cold?" and my response is, "no, although if I stop moving, I get REALLY hot."
Of course, I also have a 250cc that gets 60mpg, and I bought for just $2k... but I don't tend to drive it to work (even though I probably should, gas just isn't THAT expensive yet.)
I was talking to my ex-boyfriend saying, "you know, I started riding a bike because gas was killing me... it's just getting harder and harder for me to stop." Also, I mentioned to him that my car is a bit of my "red-headed step child" of a vehicle. It hasn't been touched in about two weeks or so...
The GP has a point, if the price really were higher than what the market could bear we would be seeing a lot more Americans and politicians supporting efforts to reduce the consumption by whatever means necessary.
She didn't say "what the market will bear" she said "what people are willing to pay" which are two entirely different things. You bear something under duress. We've built our society in such a way that a lot of people have no choice to cut back on oil consumption, so the market can bear a lot more than it would if people were acting purely of their wills.
I corrected it for you... god, forget it... maybe I should just give up... *sigh* Maybe we could get slashdot to make our posts look definitively different and we'd stop getting assumed to be guys...
New Scion xD: 27/33 MPG, $15,100
New Prius: 48/45 MPG, $21,500
Let's give it best case for the hybrid.
Prius: $21k and 48 MPG
Scion xD: $16k and 27MPG
That's $5k difference in price, and 21MPG difference. So, the Prius uses about 2 gallons per 100 miles, and the Scion xD uses 3.7 gallons per 100 miles. So, per 100 miles, you would save 1.7 gallons with the Prius. With gas at a presumptive price of $10/gallon (yeah, I know crazy... I used to use $5/gallon, but it seems less unrealistic anymore.) that means the Prius saves $17 per 100 miles. At $5k price difference, the Prius would pay itself off after about 290*100 miles, so uh... 29,000 miles.
So, we get 2 years or so. But remember, this is heavily (if not ridiculously) in the Prius's favor. Presuming we use more likely values, the Prius saves just about 1 gallon per 100 miles. At $5/gallon gas, that means it would pay itself off after 1000*100 miles. Or 100,000. How many cars do you know of that are at 100,000 miles?
Actually I did enjoy the company of a girl for a good couple of years, the first 75% of that was online though so I dunno if it counts.
Wow... you used a percentage there... I would have just been like "the first year and a half"... you really ARE a socially inept geek... how HAWT.
I think my biggest concern here is against explicitly requiring certain selection criteria, and explicitly promoting certain selection criteria.
The requirement problem becomes a situation of the government setting out criteria that its citizens will not have. Say, by saying that "if XY criterion is met, then the embryo MUST be destroyed," then you present a questionable situation akin to the intentional post-birth selection criteria of intelligence used by certain parties that I don't want to name because of Goodwin's Law.
The promotion problem is similar. If the situation ends up where "we'll give you XY, if you destroy an embryo with XY condition", then you end up with almost an implicit requirement. People will typically choose an incentive over the other option... that's because the government sets the incentive high enough that someone WANTS it more than the other option. Imagine a law saying "if you destroy an embryo that doesn't have blue eyes and blond hair, then we'll give you $5,000." (or some other number sufficient for you to start seriously thinking that it's worth it)... racial purity through incentives? :(
Bad decisions are made all the time. A lot of time, companies will listen to consumers if enough of their customers scream and holler.
Situations where you end up with bone-headed decisions get pushed through despite what the consumer thinks are places where consumers are essentially hostages anyways. For instance, Microsoft... "What? Are you just going to mass migrate all of IBM from Windows? HAH! We'd like to see you try. We'll talk to you again in a week, after you realize it's financial suicide." or "What? You're going to Linux/Mac? Who cares, we have IBM, bitch." Also, gas stations, and oil companies, "You don't want to pay $4.40 a gallon? Hah, let's see you not use gas then..."
The later really bugs me a lot... it's like every year the oil company has been saying things like "we're only making 7% profit, which is the average for a company like ours in a different business." But what they don't see is that they're making a profit in a situation where they SHOULDN'T. Your costs are exceeding the price we're willing to pay... the only reason we still are is because we don't have a choice.
There were a bunch of large companies in IT that imploded because they weren't making money, and this happens all over the place (where companies don't have hostage consumers), so the question should be, "do you deserve to be making 7% profit even though your model is technically failing?"
As far as I know, the restrictions are that something has to show a more or less "moral offense" of pain. Crickets are certainly exempt from "no pain" rules about lab treatment, as are lobsters.
For awhile, Octopodes were excluded too, but then we noticed that they color change based on pain, and they get really upset about it. Subsequently, they're now on the list of things you can't inflict unnecessary pain upon in the name of science.
Animals have rights by virtue of their consciousness and ability to suffer.
Unfortunately that's true. I say unfortunately because both consciousness and ability to suffer are not easy to demonstrate.
There is no evidence that embryos have either of these traits.
That's also true. But actually I don't think we defined 'human rights' on this basis and so it's not really a good enough reason alone to allow deliberate destruction of embryos.
It is very hard to draw a line. This is my point, and whatever line is drawn will get moved. For all their annoyances, the old versions of current big religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) with their simplistic moral codes had it all worked out. Things were just simply wrong and it didn't matter how you dressed them up to look pretty, they were still wrong.
If we are going to go forward with these new areas of therapy and medical intervention, then we have to be big enough to stop being all nice about it and be open about our intentions. Let the public see us for what we are. Let there be no restrictions on this practice and let's stop pandering to moralistic types on the sidelines who don't want it in the first place and so don't have a place in telling us how to regulate it, since we've already gone down the road.
Agreed. Animals have a protection against unnecessary pain, as long as that animal is demonstrated to feel pain. (I recall Octopodes recently were added to that list, it sucks that we get there precisely by torturing them. >_)
We've never defined human rights on the basis of "deserving it", human rights should be by their definition extended to every human (best definition I have for that is: "a human is an animal born from some arbitrary amount of human genetic code" I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine what arbitrary amount counts.) Part of the reason I have trouble with these anti-immigration laws and such is that it makes one person inferior to another based on an arbitrary factor of nationality.
I totally agree that it's hard to draw the line. And while I'm not arguing for drawing a line and saying "never over this line", more so draw a line in the sand and say "until we better, please try not to go over this line, unless you're willing to accept the consequences."
I saw a thing about a woman who had some 200 surgeries on her face for plastic surgery. It looked like hamburger, and it was almost sloughing off. I looked at her, and said, "it's hard for me to have sympathy for you, because those are the KNOWN consequences of excessive plastic surgery". It's like with smokers. I talk to them, and I'm all, "you know that could give you cancer right?" and they look at me like it's the millionth time they've heard it, and say "uh, yeah, I know." and while they're expecting some long drawn out argument, I end it with, "good, just making sure you know the consequences." and never bother them about it again.
I didn't define down syndrome as "good", I just defined it as not bad enough to warrant needless destruction of embryos.
They tend to grow up reasonably happy, and live lives that are worth protecting. By shutting them out, just because they'll never have a life "as good as ours", well... crap, where do you draw the line with that argument?
I talked about being able to select "children" based on cosmetic features. My argument applies whether the child is selected at the embryonic stage, during gestation, or after birth.
Down Syndrome is a direct genetic result of an embryo then later child developing while having a second copy or part of chromosome 21, instead of just the normal two.
"human qualities" with "very complex random variables"? Down syndrome fits perfectly in the range of what I'm talking about. Simply by addition of a part of chromosome 21, you get a child with "down syndrome"...
Are you really just retarded? Or are you on a semantic rant against people who insist on considering a child that they intend to raise as a "prospective child"?
As noted above, I think it shouldn't be prohibited, just restricted. A good way of restricting it is to require the person to pay for it themselves.
If you want to dismiss a child for cosmetic reasons, fine, that's your right. However, you don't have a right to have government funds, or health care funds pay for it.
(Unless the "cosmetic" feature would cause serious health problems.)
Handsome superficial men already prefer to marry pretty superficial women. Thus they select for pretty children.
If you want to go along the road of worrying about how parents will select their embryos then I posit that this is not morally different from telling people that they must not marry because the stupid+stupid combo would produce children of unacceptable stupidity.
However, if we do go down the road of banning embryo selection then I'm all for going the final mile and preventing idiots from having children. Any system that would have prevented Bush from being born is a system that I would be very enthusiastic about.
While I'm all for an exclusion requiring that all children who would come out like George W. Bush be aborted before birth, at the same time, I can't really justify preventing "idiots" from breeding. It seems like such an arbitrary thing to me, and I know even as smart as I am, I've done some totally bone-headed idiotic stuff in my life.
Where do you draw the line on being an idiot?
As noted above... this is more so about what the GOVERNMENT should be doing. If it's a cosmetic thing, then you can cover the costs, the government shouldn't cover cosmetic issues (unless they have serious medical complications.)
A good example, is a child who had a deformed head, and was at risk for serious brain problems because of it. The child received "cosmetic" surgery to repair the deformity, and the health insurance refused to cover it, because it was otherwise a "cosmetic" procedure.
The parents sued, had the doctors on their side, and all of medical evidence. It was determined that the insurance company doesn't have the ability to discriminate against a procedure if that procedure is being done for non-cosmetic reasons, even if it is a cosmetic surgery.
Example, you type the embryo, and find that were it to develop, it would be a girl and she would have huge enormously overweight breasts. Since health insurance covers breast reduction in those cases, it should be endorsed, because even though it's a "cosmetic" procedure, the reason it were done is in order to prevent back problems, leg problems, and all the fun stuff that women with large breasts have to deal with.
The role we are taking is closer to random mutation.
"The question is, how do you prevent people picking a child simply based on arbitrary cosmetic reasons?"
why is that a problem?
Primary reason? People are bigotted jerks. A family of a black person and a white person could potentially keep discarding children until they got one that wouldn't end up looking black.
In a way, I guess I don't think that it's WRONG, it just shouldn't be government endorsed. Say, if you make an in vitro baby, and find that it has a fundamental genetic flaw that the government recognizes, then the lab or whatever should be able to provide you a "refund" we'll call it. Meanwhile, if you choose to arbitrarily discard a child, then you don't get a refund. You don't have to go through the whole cost of raising the child, but you still have to pay on your own for the costs of fertilization and testing for cosmetic traits.
In the Netherlands, my sister had a baby, she got an ultrasound on the government's dollar to ensure that nothing was seriously wrong with the baby. Now, from that same Ultrasound they were able to identify the gender of the child, however they would not tell my sister, unless she paid for the test.
Essentially, while the test to look for serious complications was in the government's best interest, the sexing of the baby doesn't qualify as anything that the government should or should not endorse.
Good point. It's definitely a good idea, because, hey, if you can treat it, then it's not a good enough reason to refuse selection of that embryo.
Won't somebody please think of the socially-inept overgrown children!?!
Oh, you're not going to start with the the whole "think of the children" thing are you? Now, I know I'm supposed to have mothering instincts (and well, yes, I do) but seriously... I know BS when I see it.
You socially-inept overgrown children can just learn to deal with it... perhaps you might find that you enjoy the company of a girl...
Your analogy is flawed and I reject it! Guinea Pigs are not food!
SEE?! That's how you know I'm a girl >.> I make no sense.
(Note, before you get upset at me for being sexist to my own sex... it's entirely a joke, as I'm playing off the very stereotypes that I reject.)
Not true... animals have some "rights" conferred to them... c.f. that football guy who got in trouble for hurting dogs.
There is a line... if it would cause serious harm to a child that develops from it, yeah, that's not cool. Basically, you should be able to choose to discard a child, where allowing them to live would be considered cruel. Uh... down syndrome is questionable in this category (they enjoy life, they're just a burden upon parents... I would say, "sorry, not a disqualifiable condition) while cyclopia is definitely in this area (cyclopia typically causes spontaneous abortion on its own, and animals/humans born with cyclopia typically don't live very long at all.) as would something like severe osteogenesis imperfecta (weak bones, say like Mr Glass? they tend to die very early in life because of traumas) although non-severe osteogenesis imperfecta? Nope, sorry. It's just a medical inconvenience, not a medically cruel condition.
The issue comes, if we find a gene that leads to an increased risk of homosexuality (a lot of personality traits seem to be governed by genes, and conditions, and don't show a perfect correspondence, like say, being able to roll your tongue) Would a fundamentalist family be able to dismiss this, because they thinks it's a religious sin?
I totally understand where you're coming from, and for the most part, I have to agree. However, there's a fundamental error in making the sweeping statement "no line at all", because people can be excessively cruel in this world, and I'd hate to see what kind of in vitro selection criteria the Nazis would have devised....
Ah crap, sorry Goodwin's Law :(