Designer babies are here.

[Lorizael]

This should be fun.

Should have clarified. When discussing this idea, we are arguing that the idea states that disabled people are not fit to live.

Yes. Disabled people are not fit to live. It's one of the tenants of evolution and the almighty Charles Darwin. By destroying potentially disabled people before they even have a chance to exist, we are sparing them the suffering of engaging in the long war between Christianity and Evolutionism. Christianity is our enemy in this conflict because Jesus once said that the meek shall inherit the Earth. He was clearly referring to retarded people when he said meek, thus setting himself in opposition to the maxim "survival of the fittest." Jesus and all his retards will eventually be destroyed by the evolutionists, led by our prophet Richard Dawkins.

[rah]

Don't feed the bears. Didn't you read the signs.

Of course, if the bears get worked up, they may eat all the disabled children and that would solve all our problems.

[Agathon]

Come on. That's twice you've asked that, and no where, does anyone even come close to inferring that. So either you're simply trolling or you believe that. But stop saying that's what people mean in this discussion because that's simply not the case. But then why am I not suprised that your statement followed no real logic.

He's not completely off base, rah. In my experience teaching the ethics of abortion, disabled people are often even more anti abortion than religious people. I'm generally pro-abortion, but I think that abortions on the sole ground of detected disability (unless it is an extreme disability, such as Tay Sachs) are awful.

Allowing designer children is moving very close to a de facto eugenics program. Along with people keeping field howitzers in their homes, this is something we are probably better off avoiding.

[rah]

There's a big difference between killing after the fact and avoidence. I don't think you can compare the two.
If you carry that arguement out, birth control does the same thing. It just doesn't make sense.

[SpencerH]

Hair colour selection etc is ridiculous, but I support selecting for intelligence. The current non-selective system of precreation is increasing the numbers of stupid people and the humans species is doomed to "idiocracy" without a change to that system.

[Ben Kenobi]

That's twice you've asked that, and no where, does anyone even come close to inferring that. So either you're simply trolling or you believe that. But stop saying that's what people mean in this discussion because that's simply not the case. But then why am I not suprised that your statement followed no real logic.

I am making the argument that the one is an extension of the other.

Let me find the quote from Darwin.

This is from the Descent of Man.

"We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man itself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed."

I don't think there is any question.

[Ben Kenobi]

There's a big difference between killing after the fact and avoidence. I don't think you can compare the two.

If you carry that arguement out, birth control does the same thing. It just doesn't make sense.

Which is why they had coercive sterilization for disabled people. Bad enough they are alive, but worse that they be permitted to propagate.

"We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears
to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected."

[Lorizael]

I am making the argument that the one is an extension of the other.

Let me find the quote from Darwin.

This is from the Descent of Man.

"We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man itself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed."

I don't think there is any question.

Damn straight. This is why the evolutionist movement has put Christians into the upper echelons of power. Everyone knows that rich people don't breed very often, so by elevating Christians to an empowered class, we are slowly killing them off. It's genius, really.

[Zkribbler]

...although, the OP article is kind of the anti-Darwin.

Under Darwin, the rule is survival of the fittest: The best and brightest live to procreate and the weak and diseased die out.

With genetic manipulation, we can repair genes that would otherwise cause people to be blind, or deaf, or lawyers.

[Theben]

It's not even that. All you need to do to object to this is look at popular trends in interior design from 1960 to now. You look at that and then tell me it's a good idea to let the same sort of people design human beings.

Hmmm, I hadn't considered that. Still, babies born with their tattoos and neon green hair(skin?) is way off in the future.

[rah]

I am making the argument that the one is an extension of the other.

Ok so that is your opinion and you can believe what you want, but I never said that ,and I don't believe it, so don't say/infer that I did.

Which is why they had coercive sterilization for disabled people. Bad enough they are alive, but worse that they be permitted to propagate.

I don't agree with sterilization of disabled people, and never said it. I said if you can select prior to eliminate negative traits, I don't have a problem with it. That's a far cry from a call of sterilization.

You're the one saying these things so I can only assume that's what you believe.

[Theben]

This is from the Descent of Man.

"We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man itself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed."

So what. Jared Diamond said basically the same thing, but he didn't say anything about what should be done with the 'weaker' peoples (incidentally the 'weaker' people he considered civilized people in the west, and aboriginal people in Papua to have better genes, as the weak had died off. As he has studied the group for years, I figure some bias may have gone into his conclusions). It's a foregone scientific fact. Darwin's comments reflect the mentality of his time.

In this day and age, people with brains know just because someone has a disability doesn't mean they cannot contribute to themselves, their family, or society in some beneficial way. I don't see anyone hooering for Hawkins head on a platter b/c he can't walk.

[Ben Kenobi]

With genetic manipulation, we can repair genes that would otherwise cause people to be blind, or deaf, or lawyers.

That is true, but at the same time you are saying that if you are blind or deaf, that you are less of a person and need to be fixed.

I don't have a problem with say, laser surgery. A person can choose for themselves whether they wish to go under the knife.

Genetic engineering where you toss out everyone who doesn't measure up? That's something else entirely. One is a therapy, the other eugenics.

I don't know if folks are aware that 95 percent of Down's syndrome babies are aborted. These are kids that have a full life ahead of them, even if they are disabled. Am I to think that it's merely a coincidence?

I know you and I don't see eye to eye on where the train is headed, but that's ok.

[Zkribbler]

You're the one saying these things so I can only assume that's what you believe.

Come on, rah. Considering Ben's hearing problems and considering the long and infamous history of killing off people who were disabled, Ben's sensitivity to this issue is understandable.

It's true, you did not say what he perceived. But it's crazy for you to "assume that's what you believe."

[Zkribbler]

That is true, but at the same time you are saying that if you are blind or deaf, that you are less of a person and need to be fixed.

I don't think so. What I was trying to say is that that if you are blind or deaf, then you are less abled than the average person, but yet it's now possible for medical science to give you those abilities.