This is under the assumption that every single being being born anywhere is being gene tested and born at a hospital which is statistically impossible.
this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2024
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Is over thinking tv shows a disability? Asking for a friend, obviously.
Why wouldn’t you cure things at birth if you already know how to? Like, you know the kid is going to be blind, and you could just give the mom a shot to change that, but you’re gonna choose to let the kid be born blind? I dunno, that’s kinda messed up.
Because blindness isn't a disability in the Federation. Geordi lives a full and happy life, and, as OP mentioned, is actually able to save the entire crew specifically because he's blind.
"Fixing" his blindness in a compassionate, post-scarcity world that has the tools to allow someone to succeed no matter what physical characteristics they possess is like "fixing" a baby's hair color. It doesn't make the child's life easier, so what's the point other than eugenics?
save the entire crew specifically because he’s blind
so you take away a persons autonomy to have the potential to be able to see and live a life with natural sight as you see a use for it.
You did a 360 there on the ethics and wandered into utilitarian territory reducing people to things.
You might not define it as a disability but it’s still taking autonomy from someone. They could just as well invent a tool to help save the crew. There is more than one option for things such as that rather than reducing a persons entire definition to their difference and how useful it is to you.
Human condition is more than their differences or their use to you.
In the episodes of TNG that look at their near future, Geordi has his eyes fixed, or at least has realistic implants that allow him to see normally. Why would he do it if there's no point? Is he stupid?
A major Geordi character arc revolves around his eyesight. Yes, his prosthesis affords him additional abilities and allows him full function, but that says nothing of the otherness he has felt and psychological impact of being different throughout his whole childhood, and the challenges he faced for acceptance, even within StarFleet.
To dismiss his personal struggles while assuming that he's fulfilled and would OPT to not have regular eyes is incredibly arrogant and ablest, no? It is also deeply lacking in awareness and consideration of psychology, which is pretty bang-on for Boomers of the era that STTNG came out. "Oh, well looking at the END RESULT, he turned out fine, despite his massive trauma."
The likelihood is that he did not turn out fine, we just don't see the granular details of his psyche, on screen.
Which is one of the arguments against the Federations ban on genetic manipulation. There are plenty of others against it. There's no one answer to this situation, unfortunately.
Why is Barclay disabled. Unless being a perv is a disability.
Holodeck addiction is a disability I guess
Why the hell would it be eugenics to cure disabilities. If you could turn me from a trans chick into a cisbabe, I'd be down. I mean on one hand periods will suck, but on the other, maybe my fucking hair will grow out!
I’m in the same position, but if I could choose between the best hearing aids the 24th century can offer or repairing my ears, then I’m going full Geordi. Much in the same way I know some trans women wouldn’t make the choice we would.
And that’s the thing, routinely Star Trek shows disabled characters having choices in how to approach their situation and making the choices they feel are right for them. Some people will take a 5% chance of negative consequences to get their legs back, and others will take a futuristic mobility aid instead.
We actually already see this in cochlear implants. They’re difficult; unpleasant, and would give you hearing you don’t otherwise have
Uh...ok.
Here is my take, assuming:
- We have the ability to remove all birth anomalies
- It is safe and effective, i.e. not an experimental technique
- It is not controversial, i.e. curing sickle cell is just the done thing\
- Scanning tech is much better than today
Situation 1:
Woman learns she is pregnant, say week 6. Gets a routine scan on the embryo. She discovers it has a genetic disorder. That will cause it to not be able to breathe well, running and playing will not be an option for your baby, they will survive; sweet no brainer there; splice in the fix doc. Correction is spliced in the next week, monitoring for rest of normal pregnancy.
Situation 2:
Woman learns she is pregnant, say week 6. Gets a routine scan on the embryo. Doctor says, looks like there is a genetic defect, the audio nerve is not going to develop normally, your baby will hear badly at birth, and then over the next two years will go permanently deaf. Implants could fix this issue after birth, and living as a deaf person is not difficult. However we can ensure that the nerve develops normally and your baby will have perfectly normal hearing.
In situation 1, the obvious answer is to fix the issue, having life long breathing difficulties that could easily be avoided would be cruel.
In situation 2, in my opinion it would also be cruel to impose on a kid; hey we could have fixed your hearing in a safe and effective way, but we decided for you before you were born that you would be "special".
I get where people are coming from, but they are looking at it with 2024 eyes, not 2424 eyes. Why would you impose on a kid, who has no say in the matter, a disability? Because that is the choice you are making, you are imposing a disability on a child that does not need to be there.
We currently give women folate, to protect against neural tube defects; along with a bunch of other interventions. We are already "interfering" with the "natural" progress of pregnancy and birth, we are only going to get better at it.
And also the conflating of eugenics and fixing birth defects is completely off base. These are only related by the fact that breeding is involved; they have nothing in common beyond that. In the same way that my kitchen knives would make great stabbing weapons, but cooking and stabbing only really have the tools in common.
Fetus is developing normally, except it has no ocular nerves. There is no cure for this. Baby is born and neural interfaces are implanted, along with a device for feeding EM sensory data directly into the brain.
Ok but for scenario 2 have you asked the deaf? Many of us say to do just that. In fact we disproportionately fight the hearing by saying that infants cannot consent to cochlear implants
That is an interesting point, as you say infants cannot consent to implants. Which does raise ethical questions.
But you are, I think, still looking from a 2024 perspective, where none of the technologies are even remotely available.
If you can consider it from the 2424 perspective, the treatment is non-invasive, permanent, safe and effective. It has been the standard for 100 years. Star Trek medical tech is magical to us because it is simply a story, but consider if it were real, what argument could you make to withhold the treatment?
I would see this as similar to the anti-vax arguments; withholding vaccines from a child who then goes on to catch a life altering disease, is a form of abuse. The kid cannot make its own judgements or medical decisions, but it sure can catch polio.
Would deliberately withholding "cures" be considered child abuse?
That is a difficult question. I would err on the side of yes. With some caveats.
Not treating some serious genetic conditions when safe, effective and proven treatments are available. Could easily be construed as abuse.
When considering the Star Trek universe medical care is free and easily accessed. Treating these conditions would be the default.
Turning this the other way around, and looking at it from the point of view, that the technology is the standard. What argument could you make in favour of leaving the condition in place?
The deaf see it similar to how the intersex do, that it should be the individual’s choice when they’re old enough to decide.
And also the conflating of eugenics and fixing birth defects is completely off base
It's not off base and what you're describing is called liberal eugenics, or new eugenics.
[...] some critics, such as UC Berkeley sociologist Troy Duster, have argued that modern genetics is a "back door to eugenics".
I'm sure the laws set in place after the eugenics wars would be strict enough to not leave such wiggle room.
It doesn't really seem like in either situation I described that the treatment-enhancement gap has been breached.
There is no PGD, we are considering Star Trek levels of scanning technology. Both situations resulted from natural fertilisation, there was no group of potentials to select from.
The goal of eugenics, is unambiguously, to breed for some ideal. This resulted in some pretty dark times in the recent past.
Realistically, a lot of medical technology today is the antithesis of the eugenic ideal. Allowing those, who in the past, would have died from various causes to live. We at a species are the stronger for it.
Why the fuck is Julian mentioned here along with the actually differently abled characters? He was genetically enhanced as a youth because his parents thought he was a little slow.
Well... you just sort of answered why.
I just feel like, at best, he's more of an example of the other camp. He didn't have anything wrong with him, his parents just wanted him to be more.
In Bashir's own words:
"Small for my age, a bit awkward physically, not very bright. In the first grade, while the other children were learning how to read and write and use the computer, I was still trying to tell a dog from a cat, a tree from a house. I didn't really understand what was happening. I knew that I wasn't doing as well as my classmates. There were so many concepts that they took for granted that I couldn't begin to master and I didn't know why. All I knew was that I was a great disappointment to my parents."
When he talks to his parents about it they talk about how they saw him "fallling farther behind each day" and that's why they did the treatments. They loved him and did want him to be more, but the cause was quite clearly a learning or mental disability of some variety. The treatments started at 7 years old and first grade would have been at 5 or 6. If you're not able to tell a tree from a house at 5 or 6 then there's something far more wrong than simply being slow.
Accessibility features on phones and computers have made so much possible over time, it’s fantastic.
It turns out thinking outside the box of common leads to great experiences.
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