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this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
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I genuinely wonder where the line is between curing defects and eugenics. It seems razor thin how it can swing easiy into dark territory.
I remember this was literally the question posed to us by an ethics professor 20 years ago. Now it's a reality.
A person with Down's can live a happy fulfilling life, but most parents would never choose to have a child with Down's if it could be born 'normal' instead. So we're essentially removing them from the gene pool and human race.
It's eugenics for sure. I'm not sure if it's unethical though. It's pretty complex.
I don't think Downs works like that.
It's already being removed, since people choose abortion over downs and since people with Downs don't have children (normally).
It is not hereditary. It's an error or mutation that can occur for anyone. The chances are higher the older the parents are.
There's hereditary factors but it's because the genes in charge of replication are flawed.
The one thing you can guarantee of the human race though is we will do it before we really put the thought in to "if" we should do it.
I have ADHD and have 2 boys on the spectrum. Despite the challenges with my younger and higher needs son I don't know if given the opportunity to play God if I would. As you said it's an extremely complex question I don't know if anyone is truly equipped to answer and I'd argue we definitely aren't mature enough to start playing God.
Here be dragons.
Personally, I'd much rather have never been born than be as neurodivergent as I am. We all exist without our consent, and I think preventing disabilities and neurodivergence in our children is no more unethical than having children in the first place. I'd never make the decision for people who already exist, I know some people consider it a part of who they are and I wouldn't want to change that. However, with hypothetical offspring, they aren't anybody yet. You can't take away part of a identity that doesn't exist.
What scares me is the idea that having neurodivergent children could be outlawed. I think neurodivergence does bring a lot of value to humanity as a whole, and while I don't think there's anything egreiously unethical about an individual preventing it in their child, the idea that a government could have that much power over how we have children is absolutely fucking terrifying.
This is something I've thought a lot about. I hope you appreciate my rambling or at least don't find me inconvenient to ignore
I do appreciate it and stresses why it's such a nuanced topic and why I feel we (collective) are not mature enough to make the decision about if we should be playing God.
My 12 year old who is high needs is also the happiest and gentlest boy despite the challenges and when asked he feels he is not different and more importantly, he feels normal.
He also has T1D. I'd much rather we focus CRISPR on solving the problems we currently have than erasing the "inconvenience" of a neurotypical having a kid with autism, ADD or Autism.
Stopping fetuses from developing Down's Syndrome in my opinion isn't unethical because it will genuinely improved their quality of life. They will live longer lives, have fewer health problems, etc. The slippery slope however was pretty well covered in the film Gattica in which people not only start requesting designer children but the world becomes a dystopian utopia where the genetically perfected are unfairly favored as the ruling class while the genetically unmodified become relegated to the worker/slave class.
Reminds me of Cyprus with Thalassemia,
they were mostly against termination, but when they introduced screenings, and optional termination. the disease mysteriously disappeared. even though publicly they were against it
(it's a story I read about it a long time ago, so take it with a grain of sand)
Well, it looks like your memory is somewhat correct.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17486509/
i personally call it "soft-eugenics".
not too give it moral traits, it just is
Isn't eugenics more about choosing who can reproduce for the best outcome? Curing after the facts doesn't seem to fit that.
This isn't eugenics or close to it, it's fixing actual problems before someone is born, not choosing who has rights to breed. If they announced a therapy to guarantee a child will grow up immune to corporate propaganda or be able to use their brain in a rational, well-planned and thoughtful way, and have exceptional language skills, we should voluntarily hand the world over to them. Because what's happening right now is the opposite of that.
Right now capitalism is imposing eugenics on us. The system and the cost of life has created a very real system deciding who can have families. If tools emerged that could guarantee the kids we DO have aren't subject to the same weaknesses and limitations, we need to capitalize on every advantage we can.
I agree. Eugenics is about harming the rights of the would-be parents. It means telling them, "You have traits we consider undesirable, so we will forcibly prevent you from having any child whatsoever."
To me, that's different from parents choosing to avoid having a child with certain traits. Or not having children at all.
If parents decide to cure a disorder in their future child, or decide to abort a pregnancy, nobody is stopping those parents from trying again. The parents themselves have not been deemed undesirable and unworthy to pass on their genes.
Yeah this is scary. Down syndrome is definitely in the gray area too where it can be viewed negatively but plenty of people have it and lead fulfilling lives. Wipe cystic fibrosis out of a fetus and all but the most staunch biological purists would agree it was a good thing. Make your fetus white, blonde, and blue eyed and it's obviously eugenics. I don't know how I feel about this.
Completely apart from the ethics, I think this technology is really cool though.
They live fulfilling lives at the detriment of others who have to live less fulfilling lives, maybe they don't see it that way, but its added responsibility
Actual Nazi rhetoric btw
this is killing no one, its the same person tho
https://lithub.com/how-americas-concepts-of-disability-and-family-were-created-by-fascism/
Don't think too much about how close you were to calling them "useless eaters," you might learn something about yourself you don't like.
There are a lot of reports and interviews with ppl who have down syndrome that are not happy at all with their situation. Ie. Unable to have a driving licence, go to university, huge disadvantage on the dating market… the list goes on. I’m not saying they can’t have fulfilling moments but we also shouldn’t kid ourselves and look at down syndrome with rosy eyes. If it could be cured everyone would do it instantly.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_model_of_disability
Notice how everything you listed is a result of society's treatment of them and not necessarily their learning disability itself?
Cognitive impairment isn't a social construct.
Doesn't stop you.
I'm not looking at it with "rosy eyes", I'm just explaining that to me it's not nearly as cut and dry as something like cystic fibrosis.
Phenotype vs biological normative.
Deaf people will decry “fixing” a person hearing impaired in the womb. Yet, it’s a correction to biological normative.
Adjusting a gender to a different one in the womb would not be.
Adjusting physical traits for looks wouldn’t be.
Adjusting a physical trait like spinal deformity would be.
Adjusting for general height would not be.
If there is something diagnosable in the ICD-10 codes we have, and it’s preventable in a population, it would not be eugenetics. Remove gene editing as the tool, but just say “magic” a cure. Cures apply to diseases, not traits.
You don’t cure being black. You CAN cure sickle cell.
I think the line is pretty clear.
You simply use existing diagnostic criteria of deviation from biological normative function.
The diagnostic criteria and the culture that determines that criteria are both subject to change. lots of things that people consider perfectly normal now would be classified as a disease or disorder in the past.
Who defines the diagnostic criteria?
You're definitely right how this without proper regulation could get out of hand with unethical individuals trying to edit genes. I'd say from my non-geneticist perspective the line would be "would editing this gene improve the individual's quality of life or improve their life expectancy". Operationalizing"quality of life" is obviously crucial here and can't be defined socially but medically such as "no debilitating pain".
I do wonder how things like this will impact existing communities of individuals with disabilities. I'd expect it would probably increase discrimination as it will increase the perception of people with disabilities as being "curable" which isn't always possible or even desirable.
I'm fine with it at this point.
they should poll people with down syndrome. not carers, not family, no people who work with them.
if they consider they idea obscene, them or should be considered obscene, of they consider it a must, then it's ok.