Uplifting News

I think you have a super healthy view of this dilemma through your experience. As a person who has experienced the worst Down's has to offer with a very close relative, i can't imagine a happier thing they could have told my mother than, "your child doesn't have to be born with down's syndrome".

Due to religion, terminating the pregnancy was never an option, so a set of cosmic dice was spun in how positive or negative this experience would be. Let me tell you right now, I wouldn't wish my family's experience on anyone, and that breaks me apart to say more than I'm willing to admit.

Imo, then it's between the parents and the clinicians involved. My son has autism severe enough that it hinders his learning and his social growth and stuff. I go back and forth about whether he'll have the ability to live independently, or to have a partner and not beat the everloving shit out of them for what seems to be no reason. I love him, AND it's a burden for everyone in the family, not just him, not just us parents. If given the choice, yes, I absolutely would have chosen to give him the chance at a life where he doesn't spend every day frustrated by invisible barriers and possibly a life in prison or long term clinical detention (I forget the term) if we can't get him to manage his physical outbursts by the time he's an adult.

Being born brown is not a disease. 😅

What if I was using CRISPR to prevent a child from being born black or brown?

What if was used to prevent a child from being born with Spina bifada? What if it was used to correct SB so that the child wasn't aborted?

Hell, what if I used it to keep a kid from being born deaf?

Or what if its used to cure deafness after the effected person is no longer a minor?

This isn’t going to lead to eugenics. You are living in a capitalist environment this is going to lead to only a population with a certain amount of income is going to be allowed to use this technology. Eugenics is a vocal minority and everybody that goes with eugenics does not have a basis as its always been disapproved from psychology to biology. You can find patterns but nothing is perfect and everybody has quirks. Also race is a social construct so eugenics can be completely useless as your parents and direct lineage matters more than anything for your biology.

Abortions are also in utero. And it's not the choice of the child to be born either. Or a lot of the choices guardians make in stead of their children. Legally and ethically this shouldn't be something you can stop them from choosing, even if I'm personally against such modifications for the reasons you're probably thinking of too. If you say "we should stop gene modifications to prevent the loss of gene diversity risking great public health concern for our population", that is also eugenics.

Should I be able to use CRISPR to keep my baby from being born with Downs?

Yes, absolutely yes. Downs children are wonderful, there's one in my family, but I can say without hesitation that both he and his parents would have used a treatment like this if it was available. He's 30 now and he himself would choose to do it if it was available.

What does bodily autonomy mean for a fetus?

Doesn't matter.