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Comment by tired_man | Hacker News Reader

There is room for evil, but also for some good.

How about they start by testing parents for matching recessives that cause genetic disorders so they can know to have an Amniocentesis to make a decision on the child's viability?

Being able to edit out the bits for hemophilia, Downs Syndrome, Parkinson's, or <the genetic disorder you're familiar with here>?

It isn't all about trying to create some designer super race. Some parents knowing that they both carry dangerous recessive genes decide it isn't worth the risk of creating a child only to watch it suffer. More testing is good and IMHO ought to be strongly advised.

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> Being able to edit out the bits for hemophilia, Downs Syndrome, Parkinson's, or <the genetic disorder you're familiar with here>?

Don't misunderstand, I'm totally for this. In the cases you mention we have a proper baseline. We know exactly what will happen when we do the edits, on average. We are returning to the norm, not deviating from it.

The issue is all this super race talk that crops up around these discussions. It's just stupid.

I agree, but the super human stuff is anathema to the majority. I think it is only because of the conditioning they've had from reading novels (or from someone else's opinion after they read such a novel) where editing resulted in disaster and war.

It'll take time to defeat the bad publicity from fiction.

Actually you'd have to edit in genes to fix most of those things, as they're caused by missing/broken dna.

I think Gp means not carrying the recessive genes to term. Setting aside the ethics, we have the tech to do this right now.

Ummm... Me?

I had thought to mention it, but didn't want the thread to deviate to a morals discussion ;-)

Yeah, a later look had me wondering if I was reading too hard.

The whole discussion invites similar moralizing though, at least until the techniques are known to be very precise and safe.

Personally, I think aborting an embryo that will be born to live with serious defects or illnesses is the first answer, at least until embryonic genetic editing is viable in all cases.

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