"This idea of "minority" makes some sense. Many disabled people have never experienced life in any other way than as disabled, and that disability has lent a character to their lives that they aren't necessarily willing to change, and which they find valuable. If you ask someone with a disability whether it would have be best had they never been born, they'd probably say no. This is the reason why some parents of Downs children oppose aborting Downs babies - disabled lives can still be rich and valuable (IMO, any woman's reason is a good reason for abortion)."
I can certainly sympathise with the above on a number of grounds, though I have to say if I could have had the chance for a genetic predisposition towards asthma removed my view would be to sieze it with both hands. But I think the technology under discussion makes this issue much more problematic, in so far as it changes the ethical 'playing field' considerably, from a matter of practical tolerance and a recognition of human dignity in the face of unalterable circumstance, towards a matter of choice, lifestyle and human relationships. One way or another, the ability to turn back to one's parents and say 'you made me thus' (at least you might if you shared my like of melodrama) changes things - more below.
"What of the parents who want a facially deformed child in protest again the Western beauty aesthetic?"
I am inclined to doubt whether that would only be a problem in Western societies.
"Perhaps the decision should be informed by how the children are likely to feel about their augmentation. But then, children are terrible conformists...."
And as anyone who can recall what the playground was like will testify, for very practical reasons (recalling the dim view I take of that word). Any child who is different can usually be assured of a thoroughly unpleasant childhood they will spend the rest of their life trying to forget.
" But what does one consider insanity/disease? Homosexuality once was considered as such..."
I strongly suspect that any child whose parents had made a deliberate decision to engineer a homosexual child (taking the issue as a hypothetical case for the moment) would find that extremely difficult to accept (the vagaries of nature are at least unaccountable) and would resent it far more than would otherwise be the case. The dynamics of intentionality are very complex here though. Christian parents who regarded such modifications as being ungodly and shunned them, might find themselves with a homesexual child filled with self loathing and equally resentful of not having been modified.
By and large, using people as means rather the ends seems a ethically problematic concept here, but the very existence of these technologies means that inaction will pose the issues in the same way as action does.
"Yes, this is a very good point, though I am suspicious that there is a "homosexual"gene. "
As I recall there was evidence of a genetic predisposition towards male (not female) homosexuality being found, though my memory fails me on the details. Hermit, do you have anything on that topic?
"Social categories like sexuality and criminality are historical and ideological concepts, not purely biological. Even this counter-observation is problematic because it sets up a dichotomy between the social and bioloical that I believe is false. "
A dichotomy of that kind is certainly meaningless since it is impossible to prove (unless one was prepared to keep some identical twins in a laboratory from birth onwards, separate them, expose them to differing stimuli, and observe their development under controlled conditions). That said, we do know that lack of environmental stimulus can result in certain genetic predispositions failing to manifest themselves. A child deprived of any human contact would, as I understand it, not develop language (as opposed to a group of children not exposed to language who would develop one of their own, as happened in the famous case in Nicaragua). But that doesn't necessarily do a great deal to challenge Edmund Wilson's metaphor that genes are as an undeveloped film, containing all the potential of what the developed film will be. The only environmental impact would be on how well the film is developed. A difficult area.
"I doubt if homosexuality or criminality could be removed as easily as a
gene can be. "
I doubt if we will know until it is tried; and the idea has certainly already occurred to the christian right. The fact that a genetic component would invalidate their argument concerning willed immorality will naturally fail to permeate through their skulls.
"Agreed. But what are our options? The state?"
A problem certainly, though I suspect that public or private enforcement might well have the same trends, with private having some anomalies in the short term. Given public anxieties (which are there, regardless of how well founded, possibly due to prejudice over issues like the deaf children) I would suspect that if this is to progress some form of regulatory framework would be needed, which would in turn lead to the problem of the regulation currently been set up as an effectively blanket ban. Before the inevitable replies come, I would observe that that is not a view on my part of how things should be, it is a view on how I think they are.
---- This message was posted by kharin to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=25922>
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