Rise of the Genetic Database

[Farm Boy]

Any fertilized embryos were discarded if a genetic red flag came up.

Scandinavia cures Downs today. Think of all the things we'll let them cure tomorrow. Elftown baybeeee, yeah! No autistics allowed. I bet they'll be smokin' hot.

 

[Synobun]

Scandinavia cures Downs today. Think of all the things we'll let them cure tomorrow. Elftown baybeeee, yeah! No autistics allowed. I bet they'll be smokin' hot.

Aborting fetuses with objective defects isn't a cure, although I do realize your post is just meant to beat the "they'll murrrrrder innocent normals!" war drum.

 

[Farm Boy]

No, that's my prediction. Scan early and don't bring genetic disease into personhood. Downs is easier to screen out than autism, because autism is more genetically complex. But congenital heart defects? Easier to prevent at 2 months gestation than treat at 32 years. Cheaper too. And probably just better for everyone involved, on the morality of it. Expand, refine, perfect.

I think that's the hot take. Maybe not. I mean, I don't like it much myself, you're right about that aspect. I think it bakes an inherent cruelty into where we go internally to look for mercy, and that this echos. But that's nebulous zeitgeist stuff.

 

[Synobun]

Honestly, I think it's a good idea if it's accurate. If there had been a way to determine in the first trimester if I'd be what I am today, I should not have been allowed to come to term. Humans reproduce so effectively that there is little reason to knowingly bring genetic disease and defects into the world, especially when the fetus hasn't reached any stage resembling viable life yet.

That becomes tricky with something like autism because the definition for it is... crap. Now they have 'levels' which are just as crap, if not more crap. Someone who is slightly awkward is slapped with an autism diagnosis while someone who rocks and tantrums all day is also slapped with the same diagnosis. It is incredibly imprecise. I don't like it very much. My position on screening defects before viability is that you need to be sure. If you aren't sure, don't abort.

Although my preference would be to correct the defect. That doesn't seem to be on the table yet, and I'm not sure if it will be for quite some time to come.

 

[Farm Boy]

I think the criterea is going to wind up being pretty simple. I think it'll revolve around who is easy to deal with and who isn't. People with Downs don't seem to register unreasonable levels of pain or unhappiness. They're just more difficult for everyone else to deal with and relatively easy to diagnose. Of course they're among the first in the cull. That's always what culling has been for.

 

[Synobun]

Why are they "more difficult for everyone else to deal with"? That overly simplifies the criteria. I guess that's the point since you immediately followed that up with referring to it as a culling.

I honestly don't know what your position is on this. At first it felt like you considered screening for defects was a symptom of Literally Hitlerism, then it seemed like you were agreeing that it's a good idea, and now it's back to Literally Hitlerism.

 

[Farm Boy]

I think they'll leave it up to doctor's recommendations. But a child with Down's does require more care from society than a more "typically functional and productive" one. There's ease in nominal. Let's go with capitalist criterea. Expense and productivity. I think they stand in as reasonably accurate.

But what is it, if not a cull and if not a cure. I started with cure which you didn't like particularly, so I switched to another accurate term. Just trying to help out. Culling is done with the health of the heard/flock as the goal as well as for ease of management short of killing(like altering the chemical makeup of male lambs to make them less unruly. You only need the biggest strongest one to be unruly. Flock Husbandry 101.), and that would be my guess as to what the goal will be. I mean, the whole thing is done predicated on the principle that the culled are indeed not people, so their health is irrelevant. Only the herd remains. So... cull.

Don't "literally Hitlerism" on me. You're quicker on your feet than that.

 

[Synobun]

But what is it, if not a cull and if not a cure.

The connotation of 'cull' is pretty clear in human history when it comes to reducing populations.

I mean, the whole thing is done predicated on the principle that the culled are indeed not people, so their health is irrelevant.

Eh... not really. If you let it go, they'll develop into a human being. But they aren't, yet. Their health is relevant. That's why the decision needs to be made to allow them to come to term or not.

Don't "literally Hitlerism" on me. You're quicker on your feet than that.

I disagree.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Scandinavia cures Downs today. Think of all the things we'll let them cure tomorrow. Elftown baybeeee, yeah! No autistics allowed. I bet they'll be smokin' hot.

Khan Noonien Singh Approves This Message.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, then we'll have to agree to disagree on your quickness for purposes of this idiom.

I'm not a history professor. I like history, but it's not the terms I think it. I did grow up with sheep, I do think of culling in terms of why you cull flocks. That's how I'm using the term. It's accurate and it's used on nonpersons, so that shouldn't be an abortion hot-button term when context appropriate. Like specifically here.

Khan

Was a damn fine looking specimen. Smokin' hot applies.

 

[Broken_Erika]

The only downside is that we'd have to put up with this

Spoiler :

 

[Farm Boy]

Spoiler Yes Please! :

Aging is a different sticky wicket.

Edit: Ooooh, yeah. Maybe. We can always call those people weirdos.

 

[Kaitzilla]

No, that's my prediction. Scan early and don't bring genetic disease into personhood. Downs is easier to screen out than autism, because autism is more genetically complex. But congenital heart defects? Easier to prevent at 2 months gestation than treat at 32 years. Cheaper too. And probably just better for everyone involved, on the morality of it. Expand, refine, perfect.

I think that's the hot take. Maybe not. I mean, I don't like it much myself, you're right about that aspect. I think it bakes an inherent cruelty into where we go internally to look for mercy, and that this echos. But that's nebulous zeitgeist stuff.

Reminds me of the Civ 4 quote when Genetics gets researched.

"Soon it will be a sin for parents to have a child that carries the heavy burden of genetic disease."
-Bob Edwards

Screening for genetic disease is already happening for the 1.5% of babies born using I.V.F. that have P.G.D. performed on them.
I think it is only a few things currently, and I'm not sure on what % of IVF babies it occurs, but right now the concern is IVF babies having more problems than regularly born babies so Gattaca is still very, very far away.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/10/us/11retro-baby-genetics.html

In vitro fertilization, or I.V.F., is by now broadly accepted, though it still has objectors, including the Roman Catholic Church. Worldwide, the procedure has produced an estimated six million babies, and is believed to account for 3 percent of all live births in some developed countries. Designer-baby fears have proved in the main to be “overblown,” said Dr. Paula Amato, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. “We have not seen it with I.V.F. in general,” she told Retro Report. “We have not seen it with P.G.D.”

P.G.D. is shorthand for pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, developed more than two decades ago and an offshoot of in vitro fertilization. Couples with family histories of serious diseases — cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs and Down syndrome are among the more common — can have their lab-created embryos tested for the probability of passing the flaws to their offspring. Technology in effect gives them a measure of control over their genetic fate. An embryo that looks O.K. under a microscope can be implanted in the mother’s uterus for normal development. (Typically, the others are discarded, itself a morally fraught practice for some people).
But what if the issue isn’t averting a dreadful disease? What if would-be parents, rather than leaving the matter to an old-fashioned roll of the genetic dice, resort to embryonic selection to guarantee the child is of a particular sex? It can be done with pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, director of The Fertility Institutes in New York, does it as matter of course.

“The technology was out there — it was being applied only to diseases,” Dr. Steinberg told Retro Report. He continued: “I’ve decided to open the door and expand it and say, ‘Listen, this is something that people are interested in, causes no harm, makes people happy. Let’s expand it.’” Though many doctors are strongly skeptical, he also offers P.G.D. to improve the odds that a baby will have a desired eye color, practically casting himself as the Benjamin Moore of the laboratory with his “choice of 30 shades of blue eyes.”

Still other gene-altering techniques are now in play. Mitochondrial transfer, for one, is intended for a woman whose genetic makeup makes it likely she will bear a child with a severe birth defect. DNA is removed from her egg and implanted in an egg from another woman that contains healthy energy-generating components known as mitochondria. This has given rise to the discomfiting term “three-parent baby.”

Unlike most dystopian futures where scientists play God trying to improve the human genome (Star Trek: Khan - Eugenics Wars), Gattaca simply envisions a future where DNA screening gets so strong at picking out what are considered genetic defects that test tube babies are essentially error-free humans. (Not Khan)

This is noticed by Gattaca's society, so getting IVF with Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis done on purpose even for young couples becomes a big advantage for the child, something parents always like if they can afford it.
A large fraction of humans are then born into life with a statistically likely smooth road to natural cell death at 114 years old with excellent health along the way due to science.

The people born normally are gradually discriminated against even though that is against the law.
As the cost of education continues to rise, why subsidize an advanced education to someone who will be plagued with ill-health midlife?

The moral cost of discarding 1000 fertilized eggs to get 2 or 3 good ones and finally 1 healthy baby seems morally equivalent to the pile of dead babies on the side of Sparta's mountain in 300, but many people don't consider that murder at all.

**Edit**(The 1000 discarded eggs, not the mountain of dead babies!)

 

[Kaitzilla]

Hehe, men in Denmark donate sperm like crazy.
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/3dx9nj/women-are-now-pillaging-sperm-banks-for-viking-babies

Annemette Arndal-Lauritzen, CEO of the Copenhagan-based European Sperm Bank, estimates there are up to a thousand Danish men regularly donating sperm every week, out of a population of 1.3 million in areas where sperm banks are located. I asked Arndal-Lauritzen why her countrymen are so unusually willing to donate sperm. She made reference to Denmark's history of sexual liberation—it was the first country to legalize pornography— and highlighted the fact that Danes are uncommonly altruistic, with some of the highest blood and organ donation rates in Europe.

Don't even get paid much either.

 

[Farm Boy]

The Spartan mythology was as much about training the society to endure intimate cruelty for communal strength as it was about getting hard-ass babies. That callousness vs care is very much always in play in society in a thousand ways. Empathy is exhausting, finite, and expensive. It can be trained up and it can be tamped down. Echos.

 

[HoloDoc]

Khan Noonien Singh Approves This Message.

Funnily enough, I was going to mention Star Trek, but I was going to mention this: Unnatual Selection.

Hehe, men in Denmark donate sperm like crazy.
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/3dx9nj/women-are-now-pillaging-sperm-banks-for-viking-babies



Don't even get paid much either.

WTH is it with Denmark?

Source.

Denmark among the world’s most promiscuous nations

Danes fourth in both genders when it comes to being sexually active

It may come as no surprise to some people, but the Danes are apparently among the most promiscuous people on the planet.

According to the Nordic adultery website Victoria Milan, Danish women and men both ranked fourth out of the 15 nations mentioned as part of its survey.

“Danish women have more sex with their lovers, more sex with their partners, are more susceptible to having a one-night stand, are more susceptible to sleeping with several partners over the course of a year, and use more time pleasuring their partners than men,” said Sigurd Vedal, the CEO of Victoria Milan.

“Men in Denmark may be horny, but it’s the women who take first prize when it comes to the no-pants dance.”

READ MORE: A shocking affair: Danes lead European infidelity charts

No Eastern Promiscuous?
The survey showed that Danish women had an average of 4.31 sexual partners over the past year, while Danish men had 4.01.

But the Danes trailed the Finns, who ‘scored’ a 4.47 rating for women and 4.32 for men. Spain ‘came’ second for women with 4.41 (women), while Ireland were second for the men with (4.23). Ireland were third for the women (4.38) while the UK were third for men (4.06).

At the opposite end of the spectrum, women from the Czech Republic scored 2.61, while Polish men got stuck with 2.78.

The survey also revealed that at least a quarter of men and women in Denmark had sex with at least 10 different partners last year, while over a third said they had a one-night stand at least once per year.

The results are based on the responses of almost 6,000 members of Victoria Milan, so perhaps the averages are slightly tainted by the fact that the respondents are members of an adultery website.

 

[The_J]

Well stupid behaviour with your genetic data is one thing, but you also need to watch out for your family members behaving stupid with their data.

Yes, absolutely true too.
Btw also applies to social networks already. Your friends can reveal your political affiliation and sexual identity, without you revealing any of it.
Not sure if that is better or worse than your family revealing your genetic makeup, but both is a problem.

Extremely aggressive DNA screening at birth seemed to be the order of the day.
Any fertilized embryos were discarded if a genetic red flag came up.

That is already technically possible, but luckily we're not doing it in this way.
e.g. here at the hospital, the human genetics department does large scale non-invasive prenatal testing. That is, a blood test is done for the mother, to detect if the fetus has down syndrome (or any other trisomy). If the result is positive, the mother will be informed about the result, and I guess they get advice if they want to proceed with the pregnancy or not (I am unaware of the procedures on the medical site there).

Luckily this is not only used for negative screening. There is a variety of diseases (do not remember the names), where it is critical to treat the new born babies directly. This includes a defect in a growth factor, or addition of nutrients, which due to a genetic defect cannot be produced by the body. If these are applied ASAP, further damage can be prevented, and to make it possible ASAP, genetic testing is required.
So there are definitely positive effects of these methods.

 

[peter grimes]

My daughter was born hard of hearing. It's almost certainly not due to genetics. However, if we had the choice to give birth to a kid without this problem we almost certainly would have taken it.

The question then is what about cost? If it cost 10k at the time of early pregnancy to genetically therapy-cleanse the developing embryo, we would not have been able to afford it. Even though, over the course of her 5 years so far, we have spent almost that much dealing with problems related to her hearing.

What if it had cost 1k? We would have done the (hypothetical) therapy.

As for genetic testing of myself, I think I should do it. If I have a likelihood of passing a generic predisposition to my chikdren am I doing them a disservice by not informing them? Is it ethical to keep that from them?

 

[HoloDoc]

My daughter was born hard of hearing. It's almost certainly not due to genetics. However, if we had the choice to give birth to a kid without this problem we almost certainly would have taken it.

The question then is what about cost? If it cost 10k at the time of early pregnancy to genetically therapy-cleanse the developing embryo, we would not have been able to afford it. Even though, over the course of her 5 years so far, we have spent almost that much dealing with problems related to her hearing.

What if it had cost 1k? We would have done the (hypothetical) therapy.

As for genetic testing of myself, I think I should do it. If I have a likelihood of passing a generic predisposition to my chikdren am I doing them a disservice by not informing them? Is it ethical to keep that from them?

You may have just accidentally hit the nail on the head here. You couldn't afford 10k to have a "perfect" child, but the rich can. How long until the rich create not just an economic underclass to serve them, but a full-blown genetic underclass, literally incapable of ever being more than slaves to their social, economic, and genetic betters?

What a brave new world that will be....

 

[peter grimes]

Well to be fair the wealthiest among us have traditionally been the first to access just about any new technology. And they do indeed tend to use it for their own benefit without a thought to how their adoption will affect the lower classes. I'm not sure that's a good thing or bad thing, just a thing.

Are there examples where the wealthy have adopted a certain new thing that has had direct bad effects for the non-wealthy?