Britain Leads the World Toward a New Eugenics
The UK may now permit embryo screening for sex selection. China and India have legal and illegal sex selection already, leading to a wide imbalance of males over females. Other biotechnologists propose screening out embryos who might get cancer in their adult lives. Increasingly, child bearing is becoming solipsistic, where the child is conceived to satisfy the needs and wants of the parents, rather than about receiving fulfillment through unconditional love and acceptance of the child we receive.
We are at the beginning of a new eugenics in which some of us now presume to act on the belief that we are entitled to have not just a child but "the right child." The next step is clearly genetic engineering when the technology permits. All of this is part of the increasing attack on the idea that human life has equal intrinsic moral worth simply because it is human.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 8:34 PM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
Wesley,
I have a stupid question regarding the latest from Britain: What good can be achieved from screening whether or not a fetus is likely to get cancer as an adult?
Why is there concern that a person could get a genetically linked cancer? After all with all the advances in treatment these days, cancer is not always a death sentence.
Personally, I feel that it is wrong to continue with all of these tests. At the end of the day, if a baby was found to have a particular gene that might be linked to a form of cancer, then the pressure that is put on the parents is just too burdensome. I cannot see the benefits of screening the unborn for a possible cancer gene. There is no guarantee that the developing human person inside the womb is ever going to get that cancer. My understanding is that with many cancers there is like a triggering event such that if one has the gene for cancer then it can be triggered but it is not a necessary or foregone conclusion.
I hope that I am making some sort of sense in my comments. You see, when they were trying to figure out the primary source of my sister's cancer it was briefly mentioned that there was some genetic factor in her blood that had caused the cancer. She had primary bone cancer and they believed that it was triggered by a work place incident. It is all very confusing to me.
What is of a bigger concern is that these eugenists will not stop at screening for cancer, but will then demand to screen for potential arthritis sufferers. Again there is a genetic element in some forms of arthritis, and a high proportion of the population who has the genetic HLA-B27 for example will get anklyosing spondylitis, yet a person without that gene can also get that particular form of arthritis. The same is true for rheumatoid arthritis for there is a genetic component in that particular disease. Yet there is still no guarantee that someone who is carrying the gene will get rheumatoid arthritis and vice-versa.
Not much good at all. It is the quest for the "perfect" baby and the pain free life. Not only is it all in vain, but imagine the people we would miss if they were never here. It is trite but true, but had Beethoven been embrynonically screened, he might never have been born due to potential for deafness. Or Lincoln, because of a propensity to depression. And, for another example, my good friend Julia recently died of breast cancer at age 50. She was diagnosed at age 41. What a shallower world it would have been if she had been "selected out" because, say, she had a gene likely to express for cancer! And her beautiful children wouldn't be here either. We presume much when we decide that we have the right and WISDOM to decide whose life will be better and whose worse. And we limit the infinite possibilities of the human race because we worry to the point of neurosis about suffering. Certainly our jobs as humans is to help each other bear burdens, but not by eliminating the burden bearers!
True indeed. Everybody's going to die of something and with less infectious diseases, starvation and hopefully war, it will likely be something genetic. That's why I found Robin Cook's latest novel "Marker" not only overdone but ultimately nonsensical that even evil HMO / insurance would kill people pre-emptively to save costs. Even actuarially it depends how hold when you die and how long an illness and how much you treat it.
Will those that are not winnowed (in the book by adult murder, here by abortion) because today's test didn't find a marker - just keel over and not place claims - no, it's more likely the sedentary among us will cost plenty in lifestyle diseases and that can't be predicted genetically.
Even actuarially it depends how hold when you die and how long an illness and how much you treat it.
Actually I have another idea. One inspired by our Mr. Huxley in Brave New World. Yes, people can choose the sex of their child but they must make them freemartins (incapable of reproduction).
Now there's a step in population control and eugenics that would lead toward "world directors" and "central nursery managers" to decide the human future.
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