Ygorl

Does Mother nature penalize us for messing with her system(s) ? Is it wise of us to use "science" and "technology" in EVERY way we can ? Or, are there certain things we just shouldn't "fiddle" with ? Opinions ?



Remember the movie Sophie's Choice with Meryl Streep? Although Catholic, she and her two children are hauled off to a concentration camp, where a German guard tells her she can keep only one child. If she doesn't choose, both will die. Although she chooses, her decision haunts her until the day she dies. A mother-to-be can now make a choice about which test-tube fertilized embryo will be transplanted into her womb, and which will go down the sink. However, this choice will not be random. It will be based upon results of a procedure known as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD. It has been available for more than a decade to screen for genes certain to cause childhood diseases that are severe and untreatable, like Tay-Sachs disease. For these situations, PGD certainly seems a miracle. However, it is also possible to test embryos for an inherited form of deafness and predispositions to arthritis, obesity, and certain forms of cancer. As this technology becomes more sophisticated, issues of talents and personality, IQ, sexual orientation, and certain disabilities will likely be on the menu for parents "wanting the best for their children."
If we could have eliminated all embryos with potentialities for colon cancer, we would have had neither Milton Berle nor, ironically, professor Francis Crick, one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA.
In thinking of their child's "best interests," Ronald Reagan's parents would have selected against embryos with Alzheimer's; and we would never have had the president responsible for ending the Cold War.
Destroying embryos with a propensity toward ALS would have robbed the world not only of the incredible baseball player for whom ALS is named - Lou Gehrig - but Stephen Hawking as well. Socrates and Van Gogh would never have been given life by parents who wanted to avoid a child with a pre-disposition to epilepsy, and no Leonardo Da Vinci if his parents wanted to avoid sexual identity issues. And so it goes.
A person's worth is more than the sum of the troubles and challenges they might have to endure, even physical pain. Surely, some of those challenges might just contribute to the special qualities they offer their families and the world.
One of the physicians involved in this type of work, Dr. Hal Danzer of the Southern California Reproductive Center in Santa Barbara, was the only physician I interviewed on this subject who projected sensitivity about that point: "My cousin was a severe mongoloid. He lived to 21 years of age. We had to put him in a home because he wasn't safe with other kids. His family had to move to Montana to be close to him. His siblings became nurses. It changed the whole family texture. Children that are handicapped [often] make more cohesion and strength in families; the families love those kids. They are a burden but also a blessing."
None of the physicians I interviewed was willing to pinpoint "moral" limitations. One physician suggested that regulations on this technology were like "Big Brother."
I believe that "you live-you die" choices in a Petri dish diminish the value of human life into a value judgment of which combinations of traits "best serves" parents and society.
The New York Times published an essay on this issue in September. One mother imagined that the "child she selects will drown in a swimming pool, as opposed to a child chosen by fate, who might carry the cancer-risk gene but would have been a good swimmer." I thought that was . incredibly insightful.
We may succeed in controlling some genetics, but the complexity of human beings and rea life will always trump our frantic desire to make things perfect.
The concept of "perfect children" reminds me of another movie: Village of the Damned.

emptypepsi

The part about Milton Berle and colon cancer is right on. Abnormalities are part of our existence. The more we tamper with the construct of our genetics, the more we are going to create further issues - be them physical or mental. I think Goldblum from Jurassic Park said it -- "Nature finds a way". I say take care of ourselves, roll with the punches and learn from science, not use it to manipulate each other.

I guess if anyone has read Brave New World, they can understand the scary aspect of playing with genes to create alternate types of humans.

__________________
"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."
Isaac Asimov