[goethes_kind]

I never understood this perspective, that aborting fetuses whose prospects are guaranteed to be worse, is somehow wrong or even oppression, and somehow oppression of a whole group of other people completely unrelated to the family. If me and my wife are planning a baby, that's between us. There is no outside group that has a say or is somehow being oppressed when we decide that we do not want a child who is going to suffer more than necessary due to being dealt the wrong cards.

>I presume that most of you would agree that releasing this information for anyone to know would have negative consequences, and should maybe be controlled.

No. What? Are you insane? If you knew that a couple were going to have a baby with whatever problems, and you did not inform them of this because in your mind, their decision might then somehow upset some other group of people who are neither the mother, nor the father, nor even the close family, then I would find that morally unacceptable.

EDIT: Although I disagree with your choice of example, I would also like to say, that I do think that there ethics is important in any profession, including in scientific research and publication.

EDIT 2: I think your reasoning and people who think like you comes from this (very American notion) of thinking that being homosexual or being deaf or being mute somehow makes you part of a "community". And then from this comes this idea of oppression when the community is deprived of one of their new prospective members. I find this whole thinking absurd.

[abdullahkhalids]

There is one very common case where people abort fetuses because of reasons that are not "saving the child from worse prospects". This is people not wanting girls because "girls are economic and social liabilities and boys are assets". In my country, sex-selective abortion has been so prevalent that doctors now don't tell parents the sex of the fetus. If they did, very quickly would there be a difference of millions between males and females in the population with all the social problems that brings about.

If somehow tomorrow, some research project resulted in a very cheap device, usable by anyone, that could tell the sex of a baby, I think one would have to at least seriously debate and ponder whether publishing such work is good for the country or not.

[laverya]

The more western equivalent of this is screening for Down's Syndrome.

In certain countries, essentially all Down's babies are aborted. (98% in Denmark, for example)

[iso1337]

I don’t know if you have relatives or children with Down’s, but it is no walk in the park.

Forcing parents to have disabled kids is not good policy either.

[ragazzina]

>all Down's babies are aborted. (98% in Denmark

98% of all babies with Down's syndrome, or 98% of all babies diagnosed with it? How popular is the test in Denmark?

[mensetmanusman]

The test is required by the govt.

[throwawayacc2]

> I think your reasoning and people who think like you comes from this (very American notion) of thinking that being homosexual or being deaf or being mute somehow makes you part of a "community". And then from this comes this idea of oppression when the community is deprived of one of their new prospective members. I find this whole thinking absurd.

Thank you for putting this into words. I share the same perspective but never articulated it so elegantly. You made my evening.

[dane-pgp]

> There is no outside group that has a say or is somehow being oppressed when we decide that we do not want a child

I guess you're counting the child him/herself as an "outside group" in this process too.

[trashtester]

Those who are pro choice tend to not care so much about the interests of the fetus. Interestingly, I suspect that same group might be inclined to see abortion due to the likely sexual orientation of the child as so sinful that it should be reason for denying the abortion...

[asoneth]

> If you knew that a couple were going to have a baby with whatever problems, and you did not inform them of this because in your mind, their decision might then somehow upset some other group of people who are neither the mother, nor the father, nor even the close family, then I would find that morally unacceptable.

In addition to the question of morality and autonomy, I think it's also worth considering the practical second-order effects we are likely to see once this kind of libertarian eugenics inevitably becomes easier. Industries like engineering and math will change once parents can avoid having children on the spectrum. Not to mention theater and fashion when parents can choose to have only heterosexual children.

Reminds me of the message at the end of Gattaca.

The biggest real-world example of societal change is probably the sex-selective abortion someone else mentioned which results in an excess of males in several regions of the world. A gender imbalance where males outnumber females by a significant margin seems to result in societal instability so it's not surprising governments work so hard to crack down on it.