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Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

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Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#211

Post by kulahan »

llmthrow103 wrote: post #112
kulahan wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a form of eugenics, however far down the spectrum it may be. edit: I mean to imply here that the overton window is shifted, basically.

Dating apps and services with a beauty/salary standard and long prison sentences for the worst criminals are also a form of eugenics. Many kinds of societal and political changes have a eugenic or dysgenic effect on the population, and I'd prefer to live in a society that has more eugenic policies.

No they aren't, because they're not directed at anyone in particular.

Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#212

Post by landl0rd »

vtbassmatt wrote: post #134
LargeWu wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget the economic aspect of it, what about the emotional and mental cost something like Downs Syndrome imparts, for both parents? I can't imagine any parent hoping they will have a child that will be utterly dependent on them for their entire lives. It's not at all to say they do not love their children as they are, but nobody seeks to become a parent hoping their child will have severe developmental disabilities.…

Why do you think that people with Down syndrome are “utterly dependent on [their parents] for their entire lives”? All children come with a severe “emotional and mental cost”, have you seen the world today?? We knew with (well beyond) reasonable certainty that our son would have Down syndrome and chose to continue the pregnancy. We’re not religious and not part of any pro-birth political cohort; it was absolutely an…

Because I grew up across the street from a forty-year-old woman with it. She will be dependent on her parents for the rest of her life. Still lives there. They make the best of it, but frankly, their lives pretty much suck (though she seems very happy with hers). They are no longer people but first and foremost caregivers. All parents have a stage of that but it’s temporary.

I’d imagine some downs patients have more or less functionality and independence, but seems pretty much the whole distribution is just too low for them to be independent.

If y’all are happy, it’s not really my place to comment on that. But this is one of the things that makes me nervous about having kids in future.

The issue isn’t that like all kids they come with emotional complications and caregiving. The issue is I saw these neighbors spend literally two decades trapped in Groundhog Day. They never progressed past it. Well into retirement and they were stuck in this. I’m not sure if they’ve passed now or where she is, but if they’re still alive, I’d guess they’re still in Groundhog Day. Same thing forever.

Years ago, my uncle worked in a home with a group of people with these sorts of conditions. Many were downs and needed help but families would or couldn’t provide it. It’s not just needing more attention, you have to change the way you live. Like one day, two other guys were taking them on a trip somewhere. On the way back they stop for gas, one guys filling up, the other runs in and grabs a slurpee. One of the downs guys says he wants a slurpee (he’s not supposed to have them for whatever reason.) no, can’t have that. But he wants a slurpee. Repeat ad infinitum. Winds up they’re a block away driving and this guy tries to jump out of the car to run back and get a slurpee. Uncle explained to slurpee guy later you literally can’t get anything without giving it to everyone. It’s like kindergarten logic. You have to live that way. Every day, forever.

Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#213

Post by akie »

kulahan wrote: post #210
landl0rd wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you consider with which woman to conceive children, consciously or unconsciously, you are engaging in eugenics. It’s fine. Forced sterilizations aren’t but we’re not talking about those. There isn’t a set of magic words people use (eugenics, isms/phobias) where the person accused of said word must prove that’s not the case before he can continue. “It’s eugenics” isn’t a reason to shut someone down.

I don't disagree, but this doesn't change general opinion on the topic. People don't like discussing the idea that we should just delete anyone not up to standard.

A 3 month old fetus is not a person and therefore doesn't count under "anyone"

Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#214

Post by ghssds »

advisedwang wrote: post #175
kulahan wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a form of eugenics, however far down the spectrum it may be. edit: I mean to imply here that the overton window is shifted, basically.

It's not eugenics, because Down syndrome is not inherited. There is no Down's genes to eliminate. Terminating down syndrome babies doesn't reduce the rate of Down syndrom in the next generation, and nobody is doing it for that goal.

Down syndrome can totally be inherited. If a mother has Down syndrome, the risk of passing the genetic condition onto their future children is 35% to 50%.

Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#215

Post by hypertele-Xii »

vtbassmatt wrote: post #126
orbisvicis wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do wonder if the elimination of all genotypes with Down's Syndrome would also result in a significant reduction in beneficial or benign genes. I've had smart pets. I've never had children. I sometimes envision smart pets as like an X-year old child with Y-year old trait, almost as a person with a disability. If a child can't achieve independence and a life of their own, why let all parties suffer through that ordea…

Why do you think people with Down syndrome can’t “achieve independence and a life of their own”? And what makes you think they, or their families, see their existence as suffering?

The government taxes you to pay me to assist these people.

As for suffering... their families DON'T care for them. That's why I'm paid to do it for them. People avoid what causes them suffering, so the absence of voluntary caretakers is evidence enough.

Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#216

Post by b3lvedere »

ghurtado wrote: post #99
puppycodes wrote: post #10

Interesting, I wonder what else this might lead too! Encouraging we might be getting somewhere. I used to live near a Down syndrome center where a bunch of folks lived and I remember this one lady who was kitted out with Britney Spears everything, lunchbox, t-shirt, hat, and headphones. Everyday I passed by the bus stop she would be dancing her heart out to a Britney track waiting for the bus and it made my world a l…

See, it's stories like this one that make me really question just how ethical it is to completely eliminate Down's from the gene pool. I understand it's the correct medical and scientific thing to do, it's just that it sometimes feels a little bit like eugenics for me.

Isn't all life just trying to survive, adapt and overcome?

Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#217

Post by hypertele-Xii »

margalabargala wrote: post #188
lurk2 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, that is a legitimate argument to make in a cruel, uncaring (most of the time) world. No, it isn’t. “I wish you didn’t exist because your existence inconveniences me,” is a step away from “I should be able to kill you because you inconvenience me.” You will likely think that I am being hyperbolic (“We’re just talking about if it was a good idea for these people to exist, not saying we should be able to kill the…

Yes, very similar to how in the decades after abortion was legalized nationally in the US, it gradually northern to our current state where it is legal to kill your own children any time before they turn 18. Oh wait, no, that didn't happen, because in both your and my case it turns out humans are able to distinguish between life that is and life that might be. The "step" you mentioned is only a small one in a philoso…

It's happening in Canada right now. They are pressuring inconvenient individuals to take their lives.

Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#218

Post by pseudo0 »

jjj123 wrote: post #197
trhway wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the test is simple - would you like to get Dawn chromosome yourself? Or may be have your children get it? I’m sure the answer is No.

That is not a simple test. Ask any straight person if they’d want to turn gay, the vast majority would say no. My guess is they’d say no if you asked the same question about their children. But I’m gay, and while there are pros and cons to it, I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. And I don’t think just because someone else doesn’t want to be me is a reasonable bar for eradication. To be clear, I’m not sayin…

Would you want your children to be gay? As a straight person, given the choice I would want my children to be straight, so they could have biological children with their partner and a dating pool of ~48% of the population rather than ~2%. Those are pretty clear objective advantages, even putting aside the issue of societal acceptance.

It's completely understandable to have an attachment to one's own identity, but at a certain point trying to impose that identity on one's children becomes ethically questionable. A good example is the deaf community - would it be appropriate for a deaf couple to withhold medical treatment from their child that would allow them to hear? I would argue no, but some people disagree.

Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#219

Post by reissbaker »

tstrimple wrote: post #196
hilsdev wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re right the world is a lot more accepting. No matter how much things improve and how positive the trajectory though, there will be someone online who tells us it’s not enough

We live in a largely more accepting world that somehow exists in the same timeframe as "empathy is a sin". No matter how far we come as a society, there will always be people looking to "Make X Great Again" regardless of how great or not X ever was. Unfortunately humanity cannot rest on its laurels. No matter how much we advance as a civilization there will always be a conservative somewhere looking to pull up the la…

Ironically, this is the least empathetic message in this thread.

You're also wrong: there were plenty of "anti-war protestors" during the Holocaust, who lost, and were wrong; plenty of radical feminists who were (and are) anti-trans; and the idea that the American Revolution was primarily about maintaining slavery has been debunked — for one thing, it was often led by Northeners who had already banned slavery. (The 1619 Project eventually conceded and issued corrections.) Environmentalist groups in the 70s doomed the planet by making it near-impossible to build nuclear energy in the US, and then later drove the US into spiraling inequality by making it near-impossible to build enough housing. Opposing eugenics was once a conservative opinion, whereas the "science" of eugenics was favored by academia — and most of the suffragettes! The largest anti-eugenics movement came from the Catholic Church.

Of course, new ideas that were better than old ideas usually came from people now termed "progressive" — the term is self-defining (if it wasn't "progress" no one would look back and call it "progressive.") But plenty of bad ideas have also come draped in the cloaks of people who term themselves progressive, and opposed by people who at the time were termed conservative: it's only in retrospect that we rewrite the people in the wrong as not-progressive, and consider the people then termed conservative as the true-progressives. Ultimately most people want good things for most people, and mainly argue — sometimes vociferously, and acrimoniously — about what the best way for that to happen is.

Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#220

Post by SarahC_ »

puppycodes wrote: post #10

Interesting, I wonder what else this might lead too! Encouraging we might be getting somewhere. I used to live near a Down syndrome center where a bunch of folks lived and I remember this one lady who was kitted out with Britney Spears everything, lunchbox, t-shirt, hat, and headphones. Everyday I passed by the bus stop she would be dancing her heart out to a Britney track waiting for the bus and it made my world a l…

With this new gene information, we may be able to make every Down's. The world would be a much nicer and happier place.
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