Designer Babies

I was watching the news not long ago and a featurette came on about designer babies...

They esitmate in about 25 years through in vitro fertilization, we may be able to choose features to our kids, like what gender we want, eye, hair color, even intellegence, talents, and disease resitance.

Expecting mothers where asked about this and said that they would not want to alter their child, but when asked about the disease resitance, they began to change their mind.

Now I am not one to say if this is right or wrong, after all abortion itself is a touchy subject and I am pro-choice. But the disease resitance idea has me worried, today we have a birth rate that is far higher then our death rate, and that imbalance has lead to our over-population, and can only escalate
to more, long living people. The planet is in it's current state because little by little we are eating up the world's resources, the world cannot support this many people forever. It didn't seem that long ago that the birth and death rate was close to equal, death is just as important birth for the species survival in the long run.

What are your views on this?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by RacinReaver

Hell, if we have any way of preventing people from developing problems such as autism, why shouldn't we use it?

I would not consider autism as a development problem, it is just a way of being... I know this because I was autistic and I graduated from collage at age 19 in technology and have a decent full time job. I did not socialize because I chose not to.

If genetics can prevent real development issues like down syndrom, the I am for it.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by JasonTerminator

He's likely referring to the more serious cases of autism, where they have actual learning difficulties and communication issues, not high-functioning autism and Asperger's syndrome.

I have had learning difficulties and communication issues, I can't do math to save my life to this day, and my firends where few and far between, my cats where my best firends, I did not start to talk until age two and even then I got frustrated and did repetitive things when no one understood me, but I learned how to talk better and I just did not socialize with others because I did not like them, that was choice. We all depevlop differently as individuals and have different preferences in terms of interaction with other people, that is why I don't consider autism a mental issue. I speak from experience.

If autism was any worse then that then it would have to be bridging down syndrom or something simiar. Only then would I think genetics would be a good idea to prevent it.

How ya doing, buddy?