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by cornholio
3073 days ago
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This sounds too much like the old "man playing God" trope: we don't know, therefore we should continue to revel in our ignorance instead of taking any risks. To hell with that, if I can give my children genes that prevent debilitating diseases and low intelligence and if the risks are manageable, I will take that. That possibility is decades away, but it's a worthy goal to pursue. This is not about "designer babies" in the eye color or physical appearance sense - who knows what will be the beauty norm 50 years from now. It's about ridding humanity of what we know is deadly and, on a personal level, preventing my own bad genes getting passed on. I have a bad back, an insatiable appetite and high cholesterol, I'm balding and have a slight heart deformity. Should I pass those traits along just for the hope that someday some bald distant sibling will have immunity from a future plague? I don't think I'm really responsible for that, it's the task of future generations to keep the baldness genes in a bank or database and use it at that time if they find them useful. The reduced genetic diversity is moot - people of all ethic groups have today a chance to reproduce instead of being wiped out like for most part of human history. We are in an explosion of genetic diversity, even very dangerous traits are being preserved in the gene pool due to the advances of medicine that made them survivable. When genetic editing will be so widespread as to threaten the genetic diversity of the human species, we will be living in a Star Trek egalitarian paradise, it's very presumptuous to think we have any foresight into such a future. |
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Worth mentioning that Iceland has virtually eliminated Down's Syndrome from the population with genetic screening of pregnant women.
Almost all Icelandic women choose to terminate the pregnancy, if the test comes back positive for Down's Syndrome.