Is eugenics really all that bad? (On an individual level)

[dowie]

Not as in anything forced or mandated by some authoritarian state but simply an individual parent/mother selecting for or against certain traits. Is that bad? Examples:

• A woman has IVF out of choice, she's had one boy and would now like a girl (no general gender preference or imbalance in her country) - is that bad? If so why?

• A woman has blue eyes but her partner has brown eyes, she'd like her IVF kid to have blue eyes if that possibly exists among her embryos - is that bad?

• A woman is pregnant, after a few weeks she is screened and told the baby very likely has Down's syndrome, she chooses to abort it - is that bad?

• As per the previous one but, it's a rare genetic disease - kid will have no quality of life, round-the-clock care and die in a few years. She chooses to abort - Is that bad?

• A woman goes to a sperm bank, she wants a sperm donor who is the same race as her + has at least an undergrad degree - is that eugenics? Is it bad?

• A woman on tinder, wants husband/family but only wants to date 6ft+ guys with good hair who earn over 100k - is that eugenics? Is that bad?

I saw two things on social media recently that made me question this stuff, firstly some people with autism or autistic people (there is a whole bun fight about that too) were kicking off about a genetic study, worried, in part, about a cure but also "eugenics" etc..

Then secondly, there was this silly Texas abortion limit prompting the parents of Down's syndrome kids to post about how much love their kid brings etc... and how cruel it is that other people might want to abort them etc..

It strikes me that some of these campaigners are using "eugenics" in the same way religious anti-abortion types use "murder"... just as a deliberately emotive phrase. Surely abortion should be "my body my choice" from the perspective of the woman who is pregnant? These other campaigners imposing their preferences re: autism, or Down's syndrome etc.. seemingly aren't, in that respect, too different to Religious people imposing their preferences of say, only allowing it in medical emergencies or cases of rape etc...

 

[dowie]

That's not Eugenics, IVF is a fertility treatment.
[..]
Yes, that's Eugenics - the woman has selected a trait.

Interesting, both of those involve IVF and both arguably involve selecting something among the available embryos; gender in the first case and blue eyes in the second case. I'm not sure I understand your reasoning re: "its a fertility treatment", it's that in both cases no?

As an aside how does that even work heh - I know people with an undergrad degree or better or the likes whose children are - well I have nothing positive to say about them conversely some of the more gifted people I know have very ordinary parents - it largely seems to be a mix of "fluke" of genetics and the environment they are brought up in.

Yeah, you'd obviously have more variance but it's still selecting for some traits, tall guys who are smarter than average.

It isn't all a fluke whether you end up tall, if you have tall parents then you're more likely to be tall than someone with short parents, likewise intelligence is likely, in part, genetic, though environment, nutrition etc.. play a part too.

Essentially we already select for traits when looking for partners, as monty points out:

The bottom two of @dowie’s examples imo are not eugenics, they’re natural selection. You’re not actively using science to pick traits - it’s still random to a degree.

There is a bit more randomness, variance there... + you have to actually match with the desired partner which you might not be able to optimise, might be tradeoffs. Stepping up from there a woman using a sperm bank might have a wider selection available.

And step up from there could be, I guess, when screening half a dozen embryos you, know some of the things you're passing on perhaps but you still only have access to (some of) what you had to work with to begin with and whatever combinations that resulted in in those finite number of embyos.

If you then introduce gene-editing then...

but also, re: natural selection - there is this point:

The woman has her freedoms, including the freedoms to post a shallow tinder profile. Doesn't mean she's going to get it. People who are more flexible will have a larger choice of men who may bring her greater happiness, more wealth or more beautiful children. The fussier you are, the more likely a good one is to pass you by. It's a risk reward calculation we all have to play while dating.

The correct observation that most people likely can't be that fussy. There will likely be more tradeoffs for the average person. But... for someone who is fortunate enough to be incredibly attractive to the opposite sex they've got a broad range of optionality on potential partners... if female perhaps they can afford to only date wealthy, smart 6ft+ guys and then select among them.

Does the ability to use sperm banks or indeed the ability to select embryos or even edit genes then "democratise" that to some extent? Especially if the cost of gene editing has dropped so much recently?

On the autism topic they do have a point 90% of mothers choose to abort after a positive downs test.

The company is attempting to produce genetic testing it's quite likely we would see similar numbers.

I don't think they do IMO, they're individuals. It is no more a concern for them that some other mother terminates some other baby with autism than regula free choice abortion for general lifestyle reasons is for someone who was, say, the result of a surprise pregnancy and whose mother had a religious objection to abortion - the mother being pro-life in general being the reason they're alive today...

I mean if you were a mistake/surprise but you know you're alive today because your mother was pro-life should that motivate you to become a pro-life campaigner?

I don't think it would be as high a % as Down's tbh... especially if there were a way to determine if some embryo or foetus is likely to be severely autistic vs high functioning - in the latter case plenty would keep it.

On the other hand, sure, in most cases a mother to be will terminate a Down's foetus, I think that's fair enough, if we allow for abortion when simply having a baby is bad timing for career, study reasons etc.. then surely having a kid with Down's is an even bigger commitment. Fair play to the parents who can lovingly raise a kid, it isn't necessarily for everyone though, just as having a kid, at the start of your career, aged 21 isn't for everyone. Both are valid reasons for terminating an otherwise viable foetus.

 

[dowie]

great film, covering what i'd consider the best case scenario for natural humans living in a world of genetic thoroughbreds.

I'd disagree there, we already have a situation today where we've got rich countries full of genetic thoroughbreds and poor populations within those countries or elsewhere in the world, we don't generally discriminate based on genes.

We do discriminate in some circumstances based on the combination of the realisation of those genes and the result of someone's upbringing... both of which factor into how you end up.

For example poor nutrition as a baby/kid, exposure to lead, not being breastfed etc.. can all have an impact on your physical and mental development, it's not just your genes. We have poor communities where people aren't so well looked after, have a poor environment, perhaps inherit less desirable genes too, we have immigrants from poor countries (in some cases they represent the best, in other cases, they could be a random mix of people seeking asylum then getting to stay etc..).

We certainly don't end up discriminating, in general, based on genes, in fact we pass laws to ensure that doesn't happen. We do however discriminate on ability, part of which is the result of genes but plenty of which is the result of other factors too - it makes no sense that genes alone would be a selection criteria.

Of course there are extremes, a midget probably can't serve in the Armed forces or as a police officer for example. At one point you needed to be of a certain height to be a police officer (or to serve in a guard's regiment) - not sure what the rules are now.

We're obviously very selective when it comes to astronauts or fighter pilots and even train drivers - things like your reaction times, coordination, the dimensions of your limbs/ability to reach controls etc.. and absences of certain health conditions will all factor into your ability to be selected - that's the reality today, it's not some dystopian future sci-fi scenario, it doesn't require checking for genes though clearly if you did end up with genes that made it highly likely you'd have the wrong attributes then by nature of the selection processes you'd not qualify.

Likewise, unless you're a relatively small, light person you're probably not going to be able to find work as a jockey in horse racing, unless you have a high portion of fast-twitch muscle fibers (for example from having some West African ancestry) then you're not likely to make it as a sprinter - that doesn't mean we explicitly exclude others from sprinting, selection of top sprinters is based on the realisation of their abilities which is partly genetic but also involves their upbringing/nutrition, training etc..

 

[dowie]

An interesting proposition.
[...]
Anyway, I now have a son, with no plans for more kids so the condition will die with me on my fork of the family tree.

However, eugenics, however valid and well intentioned, is definitely availabile on the NHS.

Yeah that's the thing, as much as the term can generate some emotion then arguably some of it is already clearly here and available.

FYI the embryo sex selection example is something I know a friend of a friend went for outside the UK.

That's the other thing, if the NHS only allows for some selection (or in future, gene editing) under strict criteria re: serious genetic conditions etc. there will likely still be some regulatory arbitrage, can't stop people who can afford it from just flying to a location where they are allowed to engage in gene editing or selection of embryos for different traits...

problem is what are we defining as a genetic illness? sure it's easy to identify the big ones like cancer or alzheimers, but when you start digging down smaller and smaller details could be considered once your definition of genetic illness is anything that might possibly in some small way put you at a disadvantage compared to others.

like how about poor eyesight? or skin that's susceptible to sunburn? [...]

Sure, maybe - if you find a gene that makes people prone to some eye condition then want to select against that, or likewise if you have a selection of embryos from one parent who is very pale and another who isn't so much and you'd rather the kids weren't super pale and prone to sunburn (that latter case is perhaps more akin to choosing eye colour though)

Is that a particular issue? If you can exclude say Down's later on via abortion then why not exclude the bad eyesight (if it were feasible) at the embryo stage... I mean you've got say half a dozen embryos to choose form and some of them are likely going to be destroyed/unsued so why not make an informed choice instead of selecting at random?

Unlike say Down's (or some significant serious rare condition) the trivial/minor stuff might be worth selecting different embryos over but probably isn't worth aborting and starting over again for most people... the more trivial the issue less likely you'd waste several months of trying to get pregnant, several weeks of carrying oa foetus only to then dispose and wait several months again etc...

It depends on how you read it, using IVF to have more children defiantly isn't Eugenics. Whether Choosing female embryos over male embryos, (if that is what you meant?) counts is a difficult one. I'm personally of the opinion that it doesn't count, as I don't consider being female as a genetic trait. At best it's giving an advantage to genes found on the X chromosome.

To be clear no one asked whether IVF in itself is eugenics - IVF is simply the context for the first two questions, the first question is about selecting sex the second question is selecting eye colour - is either bad?

 

[dowie]

A bit off-topic, but what happens if we discover the reason cells age and die, and are able to fix it? Obviously you'd still die from begin run over, shot, etc.

I somehow doubt that it would be made available to everyone. Would it be like space tourism is now? Available only to the rich and famous? Would the general populace revolt if they knew the tech was there but that they could never afford it? Would the discovery be suppressed for as long as possible?

Don't think you could easily suppress something like that, lots of research is being done in that area, Jeff Bezos just invested in an anti-ageing startup, Altos Labs.

As for how expensive it would be, that presumably depends on what exactly is discovered, what needs to be done etc... IF some of the discoveries are made in say academia then you might might well have various companies competing to offer services etc..

Yeah, that's the sort of thing, but aside from perhaps if people are opposed to abortion in general I don't see the point. I don't really see why there needs be some special distinction here - if aborting an otherwise perfectly healthy foetus because it's bad timing for your career or you're not sure you have a future with the father or you've just broken up with them etc.. is fine then why isn't aborting a Down's foetus too?

I mean you could get a similar video with the kid's of single mothers telling women how great their life has been etc.. but really it's got nothing to do with them whether a single mum chooses to abort or not.

 

[dowie]

I think for me you are zeroing in on the issue. What is an "acceptable" condition to "de-select" a fetus??

Surely anything is acceptable.

The current standard in most developed countries is that women can abort before X weeks for any reason… could just be “bad timing in my career” etc… Checking for traits shouldn’t generally change that.

It’s an individual choice, if you’re actually trying for a baby then you probs will be less likely to abort for trivial reasons as there is an (opportunity) cost to doing so, end up wasting months more time etc… By default it has to be something significant enough to the person that they’d want to abort and start over.

Less so for embryo selection though, you’re inevitably getting rid of some of those anyway.