If it's ethically defensible to abort a child based on its sex (or for any other non-medical reason), it should be ethically defensible to mess with its genome.
I, for one, welcome our new Chinese designer baby overlords.
I, for one, welcome our new Chinese designer baby overlords.
- it is not actually defensible to abort fetuses based on sex.
- genetic engineering might make populations more susceptible to epidemics
- it would increase pressure on others, or other nations, to follow suit so as not to fall behind in the “race race” of eugenics
- it would seem to devalue non-engineered life, directly threatening the universal dignity of all human beings
- your tired meme is tired
Last i checked Organic > GMO
Only if a person believes in souls. Otherwise human fetus and human newborn up to age 1y or so is indistinguishable from any higher animals that humans kill en masse. Human babies are born undeveloped by design.
> genetic engineering might make populations more susceptible to epidemics
Or the other way around including some incurable or debilitating diseases. There is no statistics to prove either point.
> it would increase pressure on others, or other nations, to follow suit so as not to fall behind in the “race race” of eugenics
Which is awesome if you believe in transhumanism and bet on more good vs. evil from technology.
> it would seem to devalue non-engineered life, directly threatening the universal dignity of all human beings
Not an argument for non-believers in souls. There is no inherent dignity of any kind in not using gene modification vs. not using it.
Even if you believe in transhumanism, I don't see how forcing others into that believe system would be "awesome". I like Chocolate Chip ice cream, yet I would oppose a law making it the only allowed flavour.
Other than that, I don't get what souls have to do with anything. I don't believe in God, or souls, or even dualism. Yet dignity, defined as each individual being worthy of respect (as opposed to being a collection of molecules expendable in the service of any other goal), would seem rather fundamental to our code of ethics.
I think by "souls" you're actually just referring to morality in general. And yes, if you subscribe in anything-goes nihilism, then I have nothing to answer you. Except that I'll be coming to rob you of your soul as soon as it becomes beneficial to my narrowly-defined interest.
If you are concerned about gene diversity then yes it is a valid concern. But I must say that with my absolute zero knowledge in this area I still suspect that it is not that easy binary yes/no question and not yes/no consequences of it. E.g. It could be that edits would be sufficiently different and make it non-issue. It could be that edits will eradicate those same corrupted genes that make humans susceptible to epidemics. Or again, you could be right. No way to tell right now.
Next to other concerns. Again, you are worried about dignity of humans. From my point of view fetuses and newborns up to 1y are not human. They are alive but cognitively on a level of animals. At least concerning fetuses it is most definitely true. And so we should allow parents to do whatever non-harmful procedures on them. Defining non-harmful will be very hard.
I'm not anarchist or nihilist or similar. I just feel that we need to progress in gene modification area and fast. And I don't think that any single group of humans can dictate to the other group what they could do unless it is something morally awful. If for example, you oppose gene editing then I think I can't force you to do gene editing but I also think that you can't ban me doing it.
PS: just in case - I do think that gene editing should be a government regulated industry, only not extremely regulated and not affected by ANY religious view of any religious group.
If it's ethically defensible to abort fetuses for no particular reason (i.e. general legalized abortion) then it follows that abortion for any particular reason is ethically defensible.
> - genetic engineering might make populations more susceptible to epidemics
genetic engineering also might make populations less susceptible to epidemics
> - it would increase pressure on others, or other nations, to follow suit so as not to fall behind in the “race race” of eugenics
That's indeed a possibility.
> - it would seem to devalue non-engineered life, directly threatening the universal dignity of all human beings
First of all, there's no such thing as "universal dignity of all human beings", different societies have different conceptualizations of "dignity" and its consequences. Even then, why should being genetically engineered threaten your dignity or that of others? Engineered humans are still humans. Their DNA isn't necessarily any different than what some natural mutation could've come up with.
> - your tired meme is tired
I'm actually dead serious.
It does not follow. Similar: even in "employment-at-will" jurisdictions, where you can fire anyone at any time without giving justifications, you are not allowed to fire someone for a slew of protected reasons, such as becoming a whistleblower, their sex/age/sexual orientation/race, or joining a union.
> genetic engineering also might make populations less susceptible to epidemics
It may make populations less susceptible to disease. It's extremely unlikely that homogenisation of genes would lead to increased resistance to epidemics.
> I'm actually dead serious.
That's what's most frightening.
While diversity ensures better coverage genetic engineering could "patch the holes" as it were.
...which is a contradiction! Legislation like that arises through conflicting requirements coming from different directions. So, if you want to fire someone based on their race, you must not disclose it, but you can still do it. It obviously doesn't make sense, it just happens to be the law.
I'm not talking about the law anyway, I'm talking about ethics. Really the argument I am making is that maybe abortion for any reason isn't ethically defensible, but if it is, then all kinds of other things become defensible on that platform.
But in many places with legal abortions, you are allowed to abort because you don't want it.
The absence of a legal prohibition doesn't mean something is ethical; it can mean that the perceived incidental costs of policing it (remembering that this is always done by human institutions, which are both fallible and corruptible) outweighs the benefits.
This is fairly clearly articulated as the justification of the broad free speech protections in the US, for instance (not all protected speech is also ethical speech), and the same can quite easily be the case with generalized legal abortion (it emphatically is in the US, where the right to abortion rests on Constitutional provisions which, just like the protection of free speech, deal with the costs allowing the government to regulate certain areas, even to address unethical conduct.)
Nobody claimed otherwise. Legality is not the point.
> ... it can mean that the perceived incidental costs of policing it outweighs the benefits.
That's an ethical defense. We can disagree about the costs and benefits of abortion or genetic engineering, but purely based on principles I don't see how you can defend non-medically indicated abortion but not genetic engineering.
> Nobody claimed otherwise.
Yes, you did, when you said: “If it's ethically defensible to abort fetuses for no particular reason (i.e. general legalized abortion)”
That is an explicit statement that the legality of abortion necessarily implies the ethical acceptability of abortion.
> > it can mean that the perceived incidental costs of policing it outweighs the benefits.
> That's an ethical defense.
It's an ethical defense of the legality of a thing that does not depend on the ethical acceptability of the thing itself.
> We can disagree about the costs and benefits of abortion or genetic engineering, but purely based on principles I don't see how you can defend non-medically indicated abortion but not genetic engineering.
One can defend the legality of non-medically indicates abortion but not designer babies theogh genetic engineering because one believes that permitting government inquiry into the justification of abortion (given the fallibility and corruptibility of government) poses an unacceptably high risk of intrusion into legitimate bodily autonomy that is not warranted by the benefits of the prohibition, whereas the same is not true with human genetic engineering (either because the latter does not as closely impact legitimate bodily autonomy issues or because the potential public impacts of each instance of gene editing warrant accepting greater costs to control it.)
No, it isn't. Read carefully: If aborting a fetus for no particular reason (as in "general legalized abortion") is ethically defensible, then...
> It's an ethical defense of the legality of a thing that does not depend on the ethical acceptability of the thing itself.
That's a fair point. Nevertheless, I would maintain that many pro-choicers would consider abortion itself ethically defensible, regardless of the implications of its legality or lack thereof.
> One can defend...
I find this sentence unreadable. Since you are not keen on defending the ethics of abortion, but rather the ethics of the legality of abortion, it's probably moot anyway.
at least in the US you can abort a baby for any reason. The only limiting factor is time i believe.
You don't know that it isn't done.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-selective_abortion#United_...
Those who strongly favor male offspring may be a small minority. Even without intervention, there will be more male births. That ratio differs geographically. It would take a lot of sex-selective abortions to show a clear correlation.
Anecdotally, I personally find it ethically indefensible to abort a child due purely to sex, despite otherwise being pro-choice.
Furthermore, here are some legal ways to crudely "engineer" the DNA of your future offspring:
- smoking
- drinking
- legal prescription drugs
- exposing yourself to ionizing radiation
That counts for both males and females, of course with pregnant females the effects are vastly amplified.