Inheritable genetic diseases

[Tonberry]

I see your point, Red, and I respect it. Now, I think we had a misunderstanding here. I do realize that abortion is killing, but not having sex at all, is not killing. Also, you and I cannot really see eye to eye on this matter. For one, I have no diseases, so I can't really speak from your point of view. Also, having a baby means nothing to me. I'd sooner adopt than have a baby anyway, so my voice on an issue such as this means little. I have an opinion, but I don't have experience to back it up. Fair enough?

[sybillious]

unfortunately, we cannot sterilize anyone against their will due to civil rights; regardless of what they do/do not have, anyone who chooses to have children can have them, period.

on mutation, only those who have minor shifts tend to live; major mutations tend to equate to death, and i too, stayed awake during biology. mutation is a form of adaptation, in both immediate and long term forms.

off topic, there is a theory that some european people passed on immunity from hiv/aids due to their survival during the black plague epidemic; it suggested that their immune systems were altered enough to potentially pass on traits that allowed their descendants to resist infection.

'in the wake of the plague,' by norman cantor, is a sociological perspective of how one disease, the black plague, altered sociological development through the reduction of population across the board, creating a shift in classes throughout europe.

in a way, this is related; the way people react to disease and how they treat each other based on how they believe something is carried has a tie in. people suspected each other, based on background, where they came from, if they moved and even religion.

back on topic; to say that because any one given country should face a mass sterilization of their population based on their being poor is prejudicial. why not sterilize based on race, or where they live? just because they are denied care due to political, social and economic problems doesn't mean they should become a scapegoat.

aids is WORLDWIDE; let's not forget that. laying blame with one area is wrong and will not stop the disease from spreading. just as many children die from famine as from aids; the famine is a part of the cycle of poverty, aids is a disease which is a thoroughly separate issue. aids isn't the whole of africa's problems.

as for the having of children, maybe a thought is not to whether or not parents who carry the potential for genetic diseases will/will not transfer the disease to their children, but to those who live in 'developed' countries who insist on having large families. we suffer from overpopulation, yet few seem to worry about that with any real degree of concern-how long before we breed ourselves out of existence?
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prinny...DOOD!

gotta gotta get a...SPICE WEASEL!

to paraphrase my fellow mod, parallax:
I hate my job with the passionately burning intensity of a thousand fiery suns.

[Vextor]

In the case of AIDS, AIDS itself is merely a collection of symptoms caused by advanced stages of seropositive (active) HIV infection. HIV is passed from mother to child only if blood is passed on from mother to child in some way (mainly during childbirth). Rates of infection are higher in poor countries were medical care is inadequate, but even then the chance of a baby getting HIV from their parents is about 20%.

Under medical guidance, this can be reduced to about 1-2%, which is not that huge of a risk. Also, seronagative HIV may possibly never progress into seropositive HIV, and some people do end up living normal lives despite being carriers of HIV. Of course, these people should not do anything that involves the passing on of blood or semen to others, because HIV is still quite deadly. However, in-vitro insemination from an HIV-negative father to an HIV-positive mother will have no risk. The other way around will pretty much result in the mother getting infected by HIV, though.

[Hawk Thanatos]

@ Filipe: Who the frick cares about money compared to the possibility of life for another person? Most societies are managing fine with the cost of helping these people live as long as possible, I think money can be spared. If not you can always take some cash from the defence budget. And the reason Africa's poor? It's not soley because of AIDS it's because a lot of Africa's money is spent on the rich, and because Africa has fallen into a loop of corruption and famine.

[sybillious]

africa troubles are not due to aids; i've said that, and anyone who pays attention to history and current events would know that as well.

famine and political instability are what creates their problems; most countries are under the control of several local warlords fighting against each other for control, while the general populace is caught in the middle. relief doesn't reach those in need due to the fighting; the supplies are stolen or never leave the docks.

outdated agricultural methods create vast areas of land that become overused and abandoned, leaving less arable farm land every year. more and more of africa becomes a wasteland, making survival harder for those who survive the famine; poverty keeps people from finding better means for survival, so the cycle continues.

we have the means to help them, but we don't; why? they don't have anything the 'developed world' wants. in the rare occasion that some such valuable commodity is found, the producing area is exploited, the commodity is used up and the people and land are abandoned.
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prinny...DOOD!

gotta gotta get a...SPICE WEASEL!

to paraphrase my fellow mod, parallax:
I hate my job with the passionately burning intensity of a thousand fiery suns.

[Filipe]

Well seemingly my statement was misinterpreted to mean that it was the sole cause of Africa's problems. Far from it, in fact however the additional problems that arose from said epidemic have not helped matters any, I assure you. In fact all of the problems plaugeing Africa have only mounted on top of everything else that has always been a staple of what happens constantly in Africa. A lot of countries there are always at some state of civil war between the various factions that are going around there. Not to mention what has already been stated before as famine, which is something they have absolutely no control over. All of these are compounding factors, not to mention severe over population in correspondence with the lack of medical care, and food to go around to all these people. However, you can all recognize that in places like South Africa Aids is going around like crazy, being spread to all sorts of people. Now if it it was 1 person we were talking about taking that 20% risk with, I would say fine it wouldnt do any harm to take the risk. At worst that would be one child with aids thanks to the insistence on having children anyway. However with hundreds of thousands if not millions infected with HIV/Aids do the math with 20% chance of passing it on to the kids. Even at conservative estimates, those are not good numbers to hear. People have tried teaching them about protection among other things, but still far too many choose not to listen.

No I am not saying that people should be sterilized, I do not condone it, nor do I support it by any measure of the imagination. However, I do feel that those who willingly take the chance of their own accord to have children, and possibly pass these illnesses on to their offspring, should have to cover more of the costs. They know the risks that they take, they know the chances of what might occur, yet they choose to go about it anyway. You are completely right, they have absolutely every right to have children, but in that same way, responsibility for bringing a child into the world with these troubles should rest more with them. I know well several people with these kinds of diseases, my cousin included, and they all know the risks. They all know the chances of what might occur, yet they are taking that chance, and must justly take responsibility for that choice. If you must know, my female cousin is currently pregnant and while I dont recall the name of the disease, it is the same as that of Micheal J. Fox, and Montell Williams. Can it be passed down to the children's gene's? I dont know either way it's a choice she, and her husband made.

However I dont speak Portugese very well, so I cant exactly ask her reasoning behind doing so knowing the risks to herself, and the child. So yes, you could say I know someone very well who may be suffering from one of these conditions.
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[Vextor]

We're getting :off topic: (I just wanted to use that icon).

The topic isn't about viral disease or political/economic troubles of Africa. The topic is whether people with genetically inheritable diseases should not have children, and the ethics involved in such considerations. In a hypothetical argument of this kind, geography or the economical situation of each patient needs to be left out for a discussion that is purely about the topic.

Also, I encourage that people research a bit before making comments, because there are a number of factual inaccuracies that have been mentioned so far.

[Celes Tilly]

[ard]

I would rather not have these people have children, these diseases are a bad thing and cost human lives as well as a big amount of money, a lot of harm and grief can be prevented by not letting them have any children. Adoption is the answer for these people. There are still a lot of kids without a home and family with or without a disease that need a home, more kids can be provided with one if those with any kind of these diseases are not allowed to have their own.

[sybillious]

well, celes, maybe instead of being oblique about what you were getting at, next time, come out and say it; not all people will get what you're referring to, especially if it's a not so well known factoid.

as for using wikipedia as a reference, i take that with the due consideration it deserves, since the entries are made by anyone, rather than 'experts' on subjects, giving some doubt to their accuracy and validity.
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prinny...DOOD!

gotta gotta get a...SPICE WEASEL!

to paraphrase my fellow mod, parallax:
I hate my job with the passionately burning intensity of a thousand fiery suns.

[Celes Tilly]

Yes, you're right; I'll make a better attempt next time (although to be fair, my explanation was not particularly aimed at you---I thought the history would interest you).

But it still did happen (eugenics, I mean). From my understanding (and someone correct me if I am wrong), it was kicked off mostly by anthropology and people wanting to 'better the human race' through breeding (i.e. if we evolved, then we can evolve more and become more 'perfect'). That may have just been a part of it, though.

(You can find similar results on historychannel.com, or in books.)

Which brings us around to my original question: is it alright to control people this way, just because of something that was present at birth? They can't help it, and it's not their fault. Does that make it alright to tell them that they can't have children?

If we go by history, it certainly seems that this sort of thing had a lot of support.
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"Oh my god--"
"God? God is love. I don't love you."

[RedCydranth]

Well, I, as one of the people who are aflicted by this desease, am biased towards my side of the arguent. Of course I am going to say I should have the right to bear children. Its the people who can't support children who need to stop having them. But that is a WHOLE other argument.

Celes, I did blow my stack at you and I apologize, I was clouded by your usage of my disease as the primary example rather than looking at the deeper meaning of the thread. However my points still remain the same. Those who are healty are of course more inclined to think otherwise, but in the general scope of things its not something we can plausibly do. There is no way to isolate all those who carry a specific gene and force them all to not reproduce. I can guarantee that almost everyone here is a carrier of some genetic problem, one way or another. If you don't test positive for CF or CP you might test positive for MS or Juvenile Diabetes. There's only a very small group of people who have completely pure genes. And nobody knows this unless they've gotten all the tests. Even then those people can still catch things that can affect their children like HIV or other transmissable diseases. Even what we see as the healthiest of people are still getting cancer. There's no way to truly get the perfect race or breeding. Nature will always find a way. As we eevelve, so will the viruses and bacteria that we become resistant to, its the way of life.

It is not alright to control people when it comes to reproduction, unless the parents are financially unfit or mentally unfit to have children. Its a form of prejudice to say I can't have a kid because I have CF but you can because you don't. I know for a fact that if I could have kids through normal means, and a law was passed saying those with my disease can not have children, I am going to do it anyhow. What are they going to do, put me in jail making my child's father a criminal for having him? That is absurd. Are ythey going to find all CF patients and spay and neuter us like cats and dogs? Okay that's not only costly but unconstitutional.

I think these precautions are a step toward the world placed in "Brave New World" where humans were more manufactured so that they were perfect, rather than allowing genetics to take presidence. The next step would be then to make the children learn certain things so that they're programmed to never question the world they live in, which is very unnatural, especially in the teenage years. Basically what I'm trying to say is that this isn't a step forward to humanity, its a step backwards. By doing this we're telling nature and evolution to take a curb to science and human will, and eventually it will cause the destruction of our existance as we know it.

That is just my take, but of course I am very biased.
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[Arcana]

I still maintain that there's simply no practical way to do this. People like Red would be up in ARMS if such a legislation was proposed, and it would be shot down before it ever reached the floor.

It's really not in the public interest of modern democracies to advocate killing or sterilization of human beings for any reason (well, almost any, as we still see the death penalty being delivered). You are removing rights from human beings, which, in light of the whole women's rights/black rights/gay rights movements, is a drastic step backwards in terms of equal opportunity for everyone.

No, Brecht, I'm not a big fan of topics like these especially if they are a bit too hypothetical, and also because it's a topic that's touchy and can affect the readers without being entirely relevant (since there are few strong movements toward mass sterilization of humans). If movement promoting "Sterilization of humans who have genetic diseases!" came up and made the news, then I'd be more interested in researching the topic thoroughly, formulating an argument against why this should be the case, and generally encouraging that this not be considered as a policy.
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Woo, 2000 posts as of Tuesday, 2007 August 28.

[sybillious]

i stand with what i said earlier; there is no clear cut solution, and forcing someone to be sterilized isn't really realistic. not all diseases will transfer, and just because someone has one doesn't mean that their life (regardless of length) won't have meaning or significance. think of all the people who live a long time and serve NO purpose whatsoever.

somewhat related was the act of exposing newborns; a retroactive way of ridding society of unwanted children, for whatever reason. it's seen in many societies across time; barbaric, but effective from their stance.
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prinny...DOOD!

gotta gotta get a...SPICE WEASEL!

to paraphrase my fellow mod, parallax:
I hate my job with the passionately burning intensity of a thousand fiery suns.