Aspies For Freedom

Although this article - http://www.guardian.co.uk/genes/article/...64,00.html is about breast cancer not autism, I am sure eventually genetic tests for a predisposition to autism/AS will be available. However even say, with breast cancer, having the gene only means you have an xx% chance of developing the condition. The article says they've done this because "the aggressive nature of the cancers, the impact of treatment and the extreme anxiety that carriers of the gene can experience" - and exactly those words could be used by parents of people with autism/AS. It seems this embryo selection is already done for cystic fibrosis and the article is about extending it to other genetically testable conditions.

The parents want a baby without a breast cancer gene?  What is the average age of someone detecting a cancerous breast tumour?   Likely the person would be an adult before they would grow a lump.  So why should their parents be involved?

http://www.lifetimetv.com/reallife/bc/ce...trisk.html    The average age of diagnosis of breast cancer in women is 64 years old.  Are these parents expecting to live very very long lives?


I guess this is what people think a cure is - eliminating people.

It's eugenics!

Yes, they do.

Well it obviously wouldn't affect people born the normal way - just people who were going through IVF treatment if it was requested. I think all parents want their children to be healthy - although as you point out - if the average age a person develops breast cancer is 64 and the life expectancy (in the US for females) is 80 then chances are that a lot of them will die of other things anyway. There's also a pretty high chance that:-

a) their parents will be dead by the time they may develop breast cancer and

b) 6 decades in the future we'll have better treatments which lower the mortality rate for it (and even now we have surgery - removing the breast/breasts it's in which is pretty effective unless it's already spread elsewhere)

Well the life expectancy is going up 2 years every decade so I suppose there's the chance their parents will still be around (although as I would've thought the people most concerned about it would be those with a history of cancer in their family - maybe not).

Well they used to forcibly sterilise people for a variety of reasons from mental illness to epilepsy which they thought were hereditary. The Nazis of course had their own thoughts on going further than just eugenics and eliminating groups of people they saw as a threat. Anyway....

Eally, when you think about this, it dosn't actually sound like a method that would be very effective for autism eugenics. The testing that the article was talking about involved a single gene, not the large number involved in autism.

Actually, I've heard that the first people to live forever might already be alive. After all, we can in theory keep a comatose patient alive indefinatley, and according to Ray Kurzweil, it is possible that by 2030 we will have the first nanobots capable of repairing damage inside a person, greatly extending their life span.

Most breast cancer patients have good results with treatment.  It is not that there is a cure, but there is treatment available.  So why kill people for having that gene?

IVF is interested in using more and more prenatal tests since they can demand higher fees for a "better product".  However, the trends follow in routine prenatal testing.  Pharmaceutical companies are looking for larger markets and they will expand pass the IVF patients into routine testing.  

It could be that in the future better treatments for cancer or cures will be developed.  So why kill babies?  Isn't there life until age 64 worth anything?  Everyone has to die of something, sometime.

Many religions find the destruction of "imperfect" embyros as immoral.  I have to belong to one of them.  Some people might not agree with my beliefs.  As well as being immoral there are other detrimental effects to the trend to eugenics.

Another question is if prenatal testing is available for certain genetic conditions, how will that affect families that choose not to abort?  I recently witnessed a family that had a small Down's syndrome child.  People were openly critical to the family and commented "there's a test for that".  They felt that society was burdened with this child.

There is also another point to be made too. Sickle cell anaemia has a genetic component and is more common in people either from Africa or with an African background. However it also provides greater protection from malaria than those that don't have it. The genes for a certain condition - breast cancer, autism etc may have beneficial effects in some areas we don't yet know about yet.

There are also wider benefits for society at large too. For example Temple Grandin was quoted as saying that without people on the spectrum, humans would still be sitting around in caves talking to each other. Asperger Syndrome is sometimes referred to as "little professor syndrome" and it's often been contended that people like Einstein and Newton had it.

I think it is also with society at large not wanting to be reminded of illness. Look at the way old people are forgotten about in residential and nursing homes whereas in other cultures they'd be looked after by their families. It seems in our obsession with youth and health we don't want to be reminded about anything that might in someone tarnish that.

Look at advertising for example - how many OAPs do you see advertising things other than stairlifts, adjustible beds and walk-in baths?

In statistics terms, an "average", aka mean, is worth nothing without a Standard Deviation. People die of breast cancer in their 20s as well.

* Ant points at a Normal Distribution.


Ant

We can debate the finer point of statistics till the cows come home but it seems the http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,...78,00.html technique is being used already to select for a gene that gives you a 90% chance of developing eye cancer.[/url]

If its the same type of eye cancer and same gene, it could be the one that Caroline Aherne, and her brother, have.

She is a well known comedy writer and actress. She has had a full life, and the improved the world with a lot of humour. Her brother has been more affected, but he played in the band for one of her shows.
She chose not to have children knowing that it is hereditary, yet she has had such an amazing life.

I am glad she was not prenatally detected.

Another fear I have is wondering how long it will be before they decide selecting, modifying, pre-treating or otherwise attempting to guarantee a healthy featus becomes insufficiant and they begin to intentionally use knowledge from the Human Genome Project etc to not just make people 'normal' and healthy but smarter, faster, stronger, less desease prone or otherwise create genetic augments of human beings as if the current situation is not bad enough I can see it happening some time.

"Another fear I have is wondering how long it will be before they decide selecting, modifying, pre-treating or otherwise attempting to guarantee a healthy featus becomes insufficiant and they begin to intentionally use knowledge from the Human Genome Project etc to not just make people 'normal' and healthy but smarter, faster, stronger, less desease prone or otherwise create genetic augments of human beings as if the current situation is not bad enough I can see it happening some time."

They would probably promote it under the guise of "reducing or eliminating poverty and suffering".  Mean while they would still be breeding some type of unclass human to work as their housemaids and nannies.

Well, I also think that if people see someone with a Downs syndrome child, they have no business making rude comments. Would they like it if someone said the same thing to them about their child?