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from the Kwisatz-Haderach-breeding-program dept.
GungnirSniper writes:
The US Food and Drug Administration is holding hearings to help determine if they should allow oocyte modification of mitochondrial DNA, which could prevent hereditary diseases that cause issues, such as such as seizures and blindness, from being passed on by mothers. In layman's terms, this "three-parent IVF" would allow the mitochondrial DNA of an unaffected woman to replace that of the mother while keeping the main DNA, so the child would still look like the mother and father.
From Scientific American: "Once the mtDNA has been swapped out, the egg could be fertilized in the lab by the father's sperm and the embryo would be implanted back into mom where pregnancy would proceed. The resulting child would be the genetic offspring of the intended mother but would carry healthy mitochondrial genes from the donor."
The New York Times has a shorter version of the story, as well as an opinion column urging ethical and moral consideration of this procedure.
Is this an ethical way to prevent future harm, or the start of a slippery slope to designer babies? Is the creation of designer babies immoral?
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Friday February 28 2014, @01:55PM
Agreed. There must be safeguards. I would suggest that in the early stages of these kinds of technology (e.g. the next 1000 years) at least, and quite possibly forever, we should only make available treatments for things that the scientific consensus and the vast majority of the population agrees are defects. So even if a short person wanted to engineer an average height child, they wouldn't be allowed to.
(I'm referring to laboratory engineering of course. Humans have been practicing genetic engineering through selective breeding, mainly of other species, for millennia. If a short woman found a very tall man willing to be a sperm donor, and got inseminated (perhaps using a kit [prideangel.com]), that's a whole different matter.)
Just like in all areas of ethics, constructing these safeguards would be difficult - but definitely not impossible.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday February 28 2014, @09:02PM
How is this different than genetic engineering again?
She used technology. If you really wanted it to be fair, and only to be what everyone has access to, she should have to screw him the old fashioned way and get the sperm that way.
I don't see the difference between in-vitro and genetic engineering at all. The woman has absolute inviolable rights to her body, even during pregnancy. If technology comes along and women start lining up to design their babies I'm afraid I just have nothing to say about it.
The same logical foundations that allow me to be pro-choice, also strongly indicate that I can't say anything to her about genetic engineering either.
I understand why it would make people upset. Who wouldn't be upset when you are forced to compare yourself to a genetically engineered child that will be taller, smarter, healthier, have those Olympian athlete genes?
It makes us feel worse about ourselves, but in a spectacularly selfish and close minded fashion. Those children will be equal in worth just as everybody else is right? right?
Genetic engineering is viewed as a form of gentrification, which is no wonder why it's such an emotional issue fraught with "ethics" and "scientific concerns".
Let's just be honest. We will be intensely jealous of those little shits with their perfect smiles and perfect bodies.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Saturday March 01 2014, @06:19PM
It's not. I said that it is a form of genetic engineering. The difference between selective breeding and lab engineering is that the latter could be used to make changes far more quickly and dramatically than the former, which is a higher risk to our species. As luck would have it, the latter is also more amenable to being legislated for.
One good reason to have strong safeguards, especially at the start, is that without them we might not get any lab engineering at all. Or we might get a lot of lab engineering at the start, go a bit too far, and get it banned altogether for generations. We have to remember how much of a hold religion has over all our lives, and take that into account when we try to steer an optimal route to human progress.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday March 01 2014, @07:07PM
I disagree to the steering of an optimal route. Religion will end up creating the abortion situation again where, once the cat is out of the bag, women would go down dark alleyways to find a not so reputable doctor to perform the operation. There is no optimal route when you put money together with technology with supply/demand.
If religion goes to far you will have dark clinics, that hopefully, will have much lower mortality rates and cleaner environments. That's not a given.
A fair number of people die each year in elective procedures that are performed by people with questionable training and skills. It's not nice to go under and die from lipo surgery. At the same time, it's pretty stupid to ignore the huge incentive of losing weight in an obese country that markets the most skinny and unattainable bodies, both genders included.
That's weight loss, and that's just one person.
You take two people together that have actively decided to have a child. What limits do you really think they have, when for them, it will be all of their love, fears for their child, and a lifetime of their own pain driving their decision making processes? A child's welfare is an intensely frightening thing to parents, and they have to deal with that.
Religion does not, and never has, equaled ethics. Ethics are not produced from religion. How can they? They produce no universal truths that can be applied in the absence of religion. Just because some bearded man in a book, from thousands of years ago, reaches across time and tells me that he hates the buttsex doesn't make the buttsex inherently wrong; Just vehemently disagreed with apparently.
Religious people are insane when they talk about the application of ethics to science. Religion is so insane with ethics, that even the very definition seems to include them, but shouldn't. An ethic is a code of conduct, but it's a well thought out application of common sense. Ethic 1: Don't kill people. Ethic 2: Don't steal people's shit. Ethic 3: Treat others as you would wish to be treated. The first two are fairly common sense and difficult to disagree with as they logically create the foundation for a society. The last one is so brilliant in it's own right, that you don't need any religion of any kind to understand it; It exists beyond religion.
So what ethics are really at work, completely disregarding all "ethics" and morals derived from religion? That's just it. I don't see any in this specific case, and I'm waiting for a more logical and cogent explanation of how genetic engineering could adversely affect us. I know they exist at a higher level with specific kinds of actions, but not at the level of, "Hey... let's get rid of that pesky cancer risk. What do you say?".
The current occupants of the planet (me) are concerned about the bright new beautiful people that won't have to suffer any of my particular failings. Possibly, like my reaction to wheat, or eating 6000 calories a day (which is surprisingly easy to do). Hopefully, my inherent weakness towards cancers and other diseases that ultimately contribute towards my inevitable demise.
When you finally get down to it, everybody is a hypocrite. The parents won't care though, as they are not hypocrites at that moment. In that moment, they become converts. Only the ultra-religious seem to hold out and risk death or disease to "enjoy the divine plan of god". What troopers. They are wishing to suffer pain, and for their loved ones to suffer pain, and for others to suffer pain, just to please their god. Such nice and dedicated people. Glad to have them on the planet with me.
Genetic engineering of children is just way too enticing to parents for so many reasons.
Religion has no way of stopping technology. It can only delay it for awhile till enough people get pissed off by the illogical hampering of science putting highly desirable products and services out of their reach.
Religion is just so kooky. A cookie can be the devil, and all together they will loudly speak of the evils of the devil. Back in their own homes however.... out comes the cookies. That won't change till you have a really good non-religious reason to not eat the cookie. Like it makes your penis limp, or your vagina stink, or spoils beer for 2 square miles.
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Saturday March 01 2014, @08:41PM
Random statistic: in the USA, only 54% of people would ever vote for an atheist for president: http://www.gallup.com/poll/155285/atheists-muslims -bias-presidential-candidates.aspx [gallup.com]
Religious people obviously prefer to vote for someone who shares their superstitions, but they are also content to vote for someone whose superstitions contradict theirs! The thing that many of them can't abide is someone without those kinds of superstitions.
Anyone who is working towards a positive future for humanity has to take into account all the facts, and the fact that most people associate themselves with a religion is very significant indeed.
` ... [is that it's the best chance we've got]", I had been intending to add "but there are other, more important reasons too". Most of these other reasons have been touched on in other comments.
Having said all that, I should point out that when I said "one good reason to have strong safeguards