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Comment by SneakyTornado29 | Hacker News Reader

the ethics of this may not be forgotten

The ethical dilemmas associated with this won't be in doing it, but in doing it for whom, and its implications for fundamental ideas underlying society, like merit, compensation, and justice.

Where does fault lie for something like criminality, if someone is environmentally disadvantaged and denied low-risk genotype for it? Doesn't the fault then lie in the state? If you live in a society where embryos can be selected for very low risk of criminality, but someone is born without that opportunity, and then causes you harm, isn't that a form of neglect on the part of society?

what ethics? a 26-week old fetus is considered to be a bundle of cells, and it is perfectly acceptable to dispose of it for any reason or no reason at all. given that, I see no rationale to prohibit or condemn disposing of undesirable embryos

You, too, can be considered a bundle of cells.

A bigger bundle, but still a bundle.

Sure, you don't need a womb to survive, but you still need a pretty specialized environment. See all the concerns about global warming - mangle our environment just a relatively little bit and we're toast.

You're both humans with your own unique DNA. One of you is a lot younger than the other.

I wouldn't kill a thirty-year-old because they're doomed to get cancer, nor a one-year-old, nor a negative-six-month-old.

> a 26-week old fetus is considered to be a bundle of cell

"For 26 weeks of gestation, the percentages were significantly higher with a survival rate of 81.4% and survival without impairment rate of 75.6%."

https://www.verywellfamily.com/premature-birth-and-viability...

This seems just bad faith. As if this isn't one of the most controversial issues of our time

what controversy? everything has long since been decided, and all detractors have been assigned their designated labels.

have you not been consuming the news from reputable sources and correct twitter opinions in the past few months?

You are quite the bundle of cells, yourself.

A 26 week old fetus is practically indistinguishable from a human baby. Survival at that point is common.

While that's true, few born earlier than 32 weeks survive without neonatal intensive care. 20% of babies that do survive birth at 26 weeks develop lifelong health problems.

hm, i don't really see it that way. Is there some magical threshold date, or set of features, which determines the point at which you're no longer OK with disposing of embryos? I'm pro-abortion but I still consider the ethics of abortion to be fraught with potential moral dilemmas.

You won't be complaining anymore when it's your child with the disease.

It’s not an all or nothing problem. It’s perfectly doable to find a balance and we’re already doing it.

Can you elaborate?

DNA testing already exists within a restricted framework. It's not like parents can pick subjective physical traits when expecting a babies. It doesn't seem crazy to me to expand the list of diseases we test for.

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