The One and Only ShadorVIII wrote:
Ok, I'm not against the whole "screening for birth defects" thing. It would be good to know what to expect, I suppose. If there's a way to cure said defect with GenEng, I suppose that's okay, too. But the guy in the OP is not doing that. He is trying to "cure" lesbianism, whch is not a disease. Where do we draw the line as to what needs "cured"? Eye color? Hair color? I admit, I Godwin'd this thread, but discussions on GenEng inevatably "go there" because GenEng itself has the potential to "go there".
Notice my wording there, in relation to the below.
Majivo wrote:
The fact that we do not yet have a line drawn in the sand doesn't mean it is impossible to make one. These concerns are rather overblown since it's not as though we're going in and manipulating individual genes right now; we're only screening for defects and allowing for the possibility for abortion if there's something severe (Down's syndrome, for example). As far as being able to choose eye and hair color, well, why not? It's not as though society would suffer from these changes. We have a vested interest in not allowing you to choose your child's gender, but if you want to tweak your kid's genes to make them a little smarter here, a bit more athletic there, then why should we stop you? It's positive for society overall, as long as you aren't risking serious complications for the sake of giving your kid blue eyes or something. Eugenics used to have serious negative implications because it meant killing off undesirables, or at least preventing them from breeding. What's the harm here?
I think part of my uneasyness with this is that the two things bolded in your statement, I would consider the same.