Post by xiaogui17 on Oct 3, 2010 1:55:04 GMT -6
Liberal Eugenic Applications of Reproductive Technology, Pt I
Genetic Screening of Parents and Embryos
Man is doomed to live by the capricious whims of the universe. He does not create his life; a man’s life is created for him by pre-programming and random events.
Liber A:O
When I consider typical conception, it seems so haphazard. A couple hopes the shuffling of their genetic decks will deal them a good hand. It is hardly the deliberate, selective process I’d hope the higher laws of control and breeding entail.
Yes, one can select a mate that appears to have good genes. But two healthy parents may carry a debilitating recessive condition. What are we to do? Pray? Bring back infanticide? Resign ourselves to the possibility of investing resources in children that are unlikely to ever be self-sufficient, much less successful?
Nowadays, Pathway Genomics offers genetic compatibility tests for prospective parents. These kits can be bought in drugstores and require only mailed in saliva samples.
In addition, preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) allows parents to screen in-vitro fertilized embryos before a woman invests her uterus in the process. This can ensure the vitality of the fetus itself.
PGS was featured in GATTACA, which treated the practice as dystopian. Children who were conceived naturally were officially “invalid” yet nicknamed “godchildren,” suggestive of the writers’ sentimental religious leanings. When The Fertility Institutes began to develop more advanced degrees of PGS, egalitarian liberals and Catholics alike threw such a fit their research was terminated. ("You're supposed to take whatever children GOD gives you!")
Yet PGS remains a promising means to ensure that parents can select exactly the child they want, not just have an abstract “child” they hope will turn out well. Power over one’s legacy can be passed back into the hands of the parents, instead of the random whims of chance.
His ichor cleanses the sin of all mankind.
Genetic Screening of Parents and Embryos
Man is doomed to live by the capricious whims of the universe. He does not create his life; a man’s life is created for him by pre-programming and random events.
Liber A:O
When I consider typical conception, it seems so haphazard. A couple hopes the shuffling of their genetic decks will deal them a good hand. It is hardly the deliberate, selective process I’d hope the higher laws of control and breeding entail.
Yes, one can select a mate that appears to have good genes. But two healthy parents may carry a debilitating recessive condition. What are we to do? Pray? Bring back infanticide? Resign ourselves to the possibility of investing resources in children that are unlikely to ever be self-sufficient, much less successful?
Nowadays, Pathway Genomics offers genetic compatibility tests for prospective parents. These kits can be bought in drugstores and require only mailed in saliva samples.
In addition, preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) allows parents to screen in-vitro fertilized embryos before a woman invests her uterus in the process. This can ensure the vitality of the fetus itself.
PGS was featured in GATTACA, which treated the practice as dystopian. Children who were conceived naturally were officially “invalid” yet nicknamed “godchildren,” suggestive of the writers’ sentimental religious leanings. When The Fertility Institutes began to develop more advanced degrees of PGS, egalitarian liberals and Catholics alike threw such a fit their research was terminated. ("You're supposed to take whatever children GOD gives you!")
Yet PGS remains a promising means to ensure that parents can select exactly the child they want, not just have an abstract “child” they hope will turn out well. Power over one’s legacy can be passed back into the hands of the parents, instead of the random whims of chance.
His ichor cleanses the sin of all mankind.