Breeding Genetic Disorders?

[draggar]

So it would be selfish of me to have more kids because I have ADD?

Comparing ADD / ADHD to coxovara is like comparing apples to oranges. While both are issues (and yes, I have ADD) I think it is NOTHING compared to what my wife goes though on a day to day basis.

She has issues walking, getting up, and can't go a day without help from her service dog.

Not only that, strangers at the store don't look at someone with ADD and say "what's wrong with them"? They don't act like someone who has ADD has some highly contageous disease.

ADD doesn't require surgery after surgery and tons of physical pain requiring very strong medications that destroy the liver and kidneys. my wife has endured this her entire life. Because of it she's dislocated her hip twice in the past year and is trying to find a surgeon who is willing to operate on her to help contain the issue (there is no way to "cure" it now).

You need to look at genetic issues in the parents and decide if it is worth the risk. If you have ADD but your partner doesn't then chances are that the children won't have it and if they do, most likely it will be manageable. For my wife and I the risks are too great - why risk making a child go though what she went though especially when there are so many children out there who need to be adopted?

[HYHYBT]

We are supposed to be fighting to find cures and preventions of these handicaps and diseases, and people who are knowingly taking the chance of spreading theirs are making it worse.

I'm generally wary of slippery slope arguments, but since you seem to be including *any* disease with a genetic basis, specifically mentioning "autism spectrum" for instance, it seems a fair time for one. So: where *do* you draw the line, or more importantly, who gets to decide? Tay-Sachs is a horrible disease, to be sure... but nearsightedness, polydactylism, deafness, and a tendency towards high cholesterol can all be genetic. Relatively few people are biologically perfect, and I'd far rather trust the would-be parents, on doctors' advice, to make that decision than to trust the government or the population at large to do it for them. In this case, if it were me, I wouldn't want to risk it. If I were one of their children, I'd want a test before having any of my own. But it's not my place to say what they must do.

But if it is and you were to do what I mentioned, the process where you can pre-screen embryos and select ones without ADD, for the price of absolutely NOTHING...why not?

Because ADD is not a *defect.* It's just a difference that isn't appreciated very well in the modern world. And because, while I can't form a logical argument against picking out exactly what your child will be like before it's even born as if having a child were like the build-your-own page on a carmaker's website, it just seems intrinsically horrible. I realize how much this sounds like the 'ick factor' argument against homosexuality, but there it is. Sue me for being inconsistent if you like.

Possibly one of the only good things Hitler did was to make eugenics look like the atrocity it is.

Committing atrocities on such a large scale is not in the least doing a good thing. Good came of it, but that's not the same thing.

[jackfaire]

Comparing ADD / ADHD to coxovara is like comparing apples to oranges. While both are issues (and yes, I have ADD) I think it is NOTHING compared to what my wife goes though on a day to day basis.

I honestly wasn't trying to compare the two I was attempting to understand the genetic line. It was put forth that it is selfish I wondered what level of genetic disorder does something have to be to be considered selfish?

I wear glasses due to very bad eyesight. Would it be less selfish if I refused to risk passing my vision problems onto future kids?

My dad had a lazy eye that was passed onto my daughter.

I am just trying to understand what things should be considered selfish to pass on and which are not.

Plus if we don't risk passing on any of the bad things what if we end up leaving out the good things.

Will it also possibly hurt genetic diversity? It could. There could be unforseen side effects of screening out the bad.

[LewisLegion]

If he was smart because of his disorder, I'd be inclined to agree. But the fact of the matter is his disorder does nothing to increase mental capabilities. If anything, his disorder decreases mental capabilities.

Yes, but we would never know, because under legislation he would have been screened and identified as 'imperfect' in the womb and eliminated, or his parents (if aware their child could potentially have his disease) may have decided not to have him.

Then we would have none of his genius at all.

[Dreamstalker]

I guess I am the odd duck out because I think that they are with in their rights.

I would agree.

Granted, my case isn't one of genetics, but it still has to do with odds. At the time that I was born at 26 weeks, survivability was pretty low. The doctors said that even if I did live I'd be severely brain-damaged and require constant care. My parents were well aware of what might happen, but decided to do everything they could (I was a guinea pig for most preemie treatments).

(OT sorta: according to at least one group, autistic is deemed "imperfect" and should be eradicated; IIRC it is not entirely genetic however)

A 75% chance at life is still 75%. Beating the odds does happen. However, if the parents make that decision, they should be prepared to fully support/deal with any consequences.

[Gerrinson]

Personally, you do have the right to reproduce. Because it is a built in function of your body. So long as you can find someone else willing to mate with you, you're all set.

Stepping beyond that, however, society incurs a cost when individuals who are carriers of genetic disorders pass it on. At some point, society needs to say 'Whoa! Why are we taking care of you?'

So, here's what I propose (and this will never happen barring me taking over the world *scratches a brief note to Pinky*):

If you and/or your partner are a known carrier of X genetic disorder and you knowingly reproduce, thereby taking the chance of passing the disorder on to your child, then you - and only you - are responsible for paying for their medical condtion until they come of age.

At which point, your child will be saddled with the full cost of their own medical care, unless you want to continue to contribute. No insurance company, government aid program, etc. will ever be responsible for paying for any medical care for the genetic defects you knowingly pass on. Essentially, you break it, you bought it.

To me, that's pretty fair. And given my genetic history for diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, I'm a walking time bomb of genetic tragedy. I am also something of an extremist - I see cancer as a function of natural selection, and thus not something to be opposed. If I develop cancer then either it will spontaneously go into remission (meaning I have the natural ability to overcome the problem) or I will die. Most likely the latter.

My uncle felt the same way. He developed leukemia, and refused any and all treatment. He was dead within a few months of diagnosis. I will not be reproducing. My bad genes end with me.

Socially speaking, it is horrible to see someone you love suffer from cancer. And when you're in that situation, looking for any method of saving their lives is a normal reaction and I understand why so many people do it. My personal opinion applies solely to me, myself, and I.

[KellyHabersham]

This post reminds me somewhat of a family whom I was familiar with when we lived in northern Arizona - the oldest daughter and the son were healthy, average kids, but the third child had severe physical/mental disabilities. (some combination of Downs Syndrome and dwarfism, I think) The parents went on to have a fourth child, who unfortunately had the exact same issues as child #3.

[Nyoibo]

Possibly one of the only good things Hitler did was to make eugenics look like the atrocity it is.

Hitlers version of eugenics was an atrocity, eugenics it's self is not good or bad, how it's implemented is.

I was going to write more but I can't seem to word it right at the moment.

[jackfaire]

Eugenics just makes me think one thing.

KHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!

[Greenday]

Hitlers version of eugenics was an atrocity, eugenics it's self is not good or bad, how it's implemented is.

I was going to write more but I can't seem to word it right at the moment.

Committing atrocities on such a large scale is not in the least doing a good thing. Good came of it, but that's not the same thing.

We were forcefully sterilizing people We deemed people inferior and prevented them from ever being able to reproduce. No, what Hitler did was wrong. But if he never did it, it honestly wouldn't surprise me if it had continued on into recent times and not died out right after WWII. It was Hitler who stopped the American eugenics programs.

[Rapscallion]

My question is, under these circumstances, the parents knowing the odds, what do you think about the parents having yet another kid?

On a very pragmatic note, they've had one out of two children born with this, and the statistical outcome is logically that they could conceive many times and still only have a 25% chance of the child having this condition. They may be thinking they're owed two healthy children, and in a species driven to breed in the way that we are, that's enough of a chance for people to go for.

In the grand scheme of things, I'm all up for mutation. It's what drives evolution, after all. Most mutations won't work, and on the individual instance that's tragic. A few select ones will improve or alter the species. This is one of the former type. In a cold-blooded way, you have to accept these losses in a 'grand scheme of things' perspective for evolution to continue. In the Tay Sachs case, maybe the mutation mixed with another mutation may lead to some sort of improvement? I don't know, but I do fear that as a species we're going to lose out by stagnating physically and mentally. Extra finger? Harmless, but it's routinely cut off when discovered in infancy. A future where such is routinely cut off by a society who do it for cultural reasons isn't unimaginable, even though every child is born with the extra digit.

Rapscallion

[AdminAssistant]

If you and/or your partner are a known carrier of X genetic disorder and you knowingly reproduce, thereby taking the chance of passing the disorder on to your child, then you - and only you - are responsible for paying for their medical condtion until they come of age.

At which point, your child will be saddled with the full cost of their own medical care, unless you want to continue to contribute. No insurance company, government aid program, etc. will ever be responsible for paying for any medical care for the genetic defects you knowingly pass on. Essentially, you break it, you bought it.

I would agree with this.

[Greenday]

In the grand scheme of things, I'm all up for mutation. It's what drives evolution, after all. Most mutations won't work, and on the individual instance that's tragic. A few select ones will improve or alter the species. This is one of the former type. In a cold-blooded way, you have to accept these losses in a 'grand scheme of things' perspective for evolution to continue. In the Tay Sachs case, maybe the mutation mixed with another mutation may lead to some sort of improvement? I don't know, but I do fear that as a species we're going to lose out by stagnating physically and mentally. Extra finger? Harmless, but it's routinely cut off when discovered in infancy. A future where such is routinely cut off by a society who do it for cultural reasons isn't unimaginable, even though every child is born with the extra digit.

The problem is, MOST mutations will kill the embryo. The extreme majority of them, really. The kinds of mutations that will change humans for the better are not of these kinds. These are genes that when you get one from each parent, you are going to have a genetic disorder 100% of the time. It WOULD be interesting to see how polydactylies would fair with their extra digits, but finding shoes and gloves may be a tad hard. But cutting off their finger doesn't change their genetics. Even without the finger, they still have the polydactyly gene and can still pass it on.

[HYHYBT]

I would agree with this.

Now that's interesting: if you're going to go this way, why not force the parents to supply a fund of some sort to care for the child his entire life, rather than putting the burden of their choice onto someone who, depending on the defect, often will never be able to earn a living anyway?

[BlaqueKatt]

These people are brave and not selfish.. the horror of losing a child.. but to be willing to try again...

So it would be "brave" of me to risk(well I wouldn't risk anything personally-I'd be risking someone else's life which I do not have the right to do) having another child that can't speak or communicate in any meaningful manner, will never be able to live on his own-is not even out of diapers at age 9*, just so I could "experience the joy of holding something I carried inside me for nine months"? I wouldn't be at risk for anything, I'd potentially be dooming another human-how on earth could that be considered brave by any definition of the word? Being willing to put another at risk for no other purpose than one's own sense of happiness and fulfillment is the very definition of selfish.

self⋅ish
devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one's own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others.

Or is it more noble to say "the defects end with me" I'll give a life to a child that is already here and has no family?

*my son is profoundly autistic, I have autism, my grandfather had autism.
My husband has Marfan's which can easily be a death sentence(aortic dilation and rupture usually happens around age 30 or so)-so if it were passed on we'd knowingly be having a child we would outlive, or at least I may



Brave
possessing or exhibiting courage

Courage
The state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, fear, or vicissitudes with self-possession, confidence, and resolution.


nope only one of those definitions fits.....