Should the mentally challenged be allowed to procreate?

[camazotz]

Allowed to, I'll say yes. Advised to, no. Anyone with a genetic disease/disease carrier should be very cautious around having children, until the point that we have all-reaching, government-paid gene therapy. Don't restrict people's rights, but I'd say people should be very careful around it.

All-reaching, government-paid gene therapy is just eugenics by another name. Imagine a world where everybody was "perfect" genetically. Might as well just build humans on assembly lines at that point.

Can you imagine if Mozart were born and raised/educated in modern America? They'd have medicated him into perfect mediocrity, and if his creativity persisted they'd probably have him writing ad jingles.

I'm not normally anti-science, but genetics and the engineering of mankind is an affront to the gods---but more than that, even when I was an atheist I still thought it was an affront to everything that is beautiful about the human animal.

Would you accept an advancement in gene therapy if it was a purely consensual option derived from medical studies, and not required/mandated by the government or society? That's what I would be searching for. I, for example, have diabetes, an inherited condition. If I could receive a treatment that insured my children, as well as their children, were no longer at risk of the disease, I most definitely would seek out such a cure. I do not consider it something that makes me "unique," I consider it a debilitating curse.

 

[justjrandomuser]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

Read this it pretty much covers the whole idea.

 

[MetroidNut]

Restricting the rights of procreation to certain people sounds like a recipe for disaster. How does one determine if they are fit to give birth to children? Will everyone be forced to go through tests? Who will regulate these tests? Why would these people get to decide what is acceptable? I probably trust the government with more things than most people do, but I would never want them to control breeding. It could only lead to one thing; discrimination on a genetic level. And that's one thing our society could do without.

Not all mentally challenged people have mentally challenged children, nor do all non-mentally challenged people have non-mentally challenged kids.

It's also important to keep this in mind.

Agreed on all points. I mean, every single one. You, sir, have covered my views well enough that I'm afraid I don't have anything to add.

 

[Litchhunter]

One of the main issues to this is, what falls under "mentally challenged"? My brother has issues with the speach part of his brain, a body that dosen't function well unless he is given the correct amount of certain things, and has issues with social relations. He is also the smartest kid of his age I know when it comes to math, he plays with calculaters as we may play with videogames. So where does that fall? To much gra area. I'm not argueing for or against it, just pointing out a glareing flaw. (Oh, and to all the people saying no on the grounds of it "weakening the gene pool", Id like you to think for a momment, how many people are there in the world? What does it really matter if one person is weaker than others? It's like saying "you cant bench 2/3 your weight, you cant breed because only the strongest should survive.")

 

[VicunaBlue]

Ehh as long as they aren't diagnosed with a specific mental condition, as in just dim, I think they should be allowed too.

Not really for transhumanism, through any means.

 

[SimuLord]

Allowed to, I'll say yes. Advised to, no. Anyone with a genetic disease/disease carrier should be very cautious around having children, until the point that we have all-reaching, government-paid gene therapy. Don't restrict people's rights, but I'd say people should be very careful around it.

All-reaching, government-paid gene therapy is just eugenics by another name. Imagine a world where everybody was "perfect" genetically. Might as well just build humans on assembly lines at that point.

Can you imagine if Mozart were born and raised/educated in modern America? They'd have medicated him into perfect mediocrity, and if his creativity persisted they'd probably have him writing ad jingles.

I'm not normally anti-science, but genetics and the engineering of mankind is an affront to the gods---but more than that, even when I was an atheist I still thought it was an affront to everything that is beautiful about the human animal.

Would you accept an advancement in gene therapy if it was a purely consensual option derived from medical studies, and not required/mandated by the government or society? That's what I would be searching for. I, for example, have diabetes, an inherited condition. If I could receive a treatment that insured my children, as well as their children, were no longer at risk of the disease, I most definitely would seek out such a cure. I do not consider it something that makes me "unique," I consider it a debilitating curse.

Diabetes, cancer, that sort of thing I have no problem with.

But you just know they're going to use this for stuff like autism spectrum disorders (if in fact autism has a genetic component, which hasn't been established one way or the other). I "suffer from" PDD-NOS (or "atypical autism"). I don't consider it a disease, and if someone went into my DNA with a wrench and "fixed" it, I would cease to be the person that those who love me think is so wonderful. That's a big loss for me AND them.

And why stop there? The problem is that once there is a way to create designer children, social norms and expectations will use that to widen the class divide, creating a race of supermen who consider it their right to rule over the imperfect. We won't need government to do it for us---the free market will take that and run with it.

So yeah. Diabetes? Down's syndrome? The breast cancer genes (and genes for whatever other cancers have a genetic link)? That's one thing. But laws have to be passed to make sure it goes that far and no further.

 

[Mikeyfell]

no one should procreate
the human race should just fizzle out in the next 80 or 90 years

 

[Isaac The Grape]

I'd say no. That's not the kind of thing we need to spread.

Should the mentally challenged have the basic civil right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that is the very founding principle of this country? Should they be treated like human beings with human rights and not marginalized by elitist swine who want to "improve the gene pool"? How about atheists (or Christians, or Muslims, or Scientologists)? Gays? Republicans? Where does it end with you?

Anyone who says that another human being doesn't have the same basic human rights as anyone else needs to practice their own form of population control. The kind that was amply demonstrated by Private Pyle in the bathroom in Full Metal Jacket.

And fuck anyone who disagrees. People like your friend make me sick to my stomach.

First, decide on what, exactly, constitutes at "mentally challenged?" Where do we draw the line and decide A is mentally OK, and B is retarded. If we can't come to a consensus, then I'd let the "mentally challenged" retain their freedom to knock each other up.

Argument, won.

EDIT: And now someone is probably going to start a thread on freedom of expression and systems of policy making.

 

[The Austin]

Nay, nay I say!

Well, it really depends on the mental condition.
If they are physically able to take care of the baby, than go for it. Otherwise, hell to the no.

 

[TeeBs]

Sure, I mean who doesn't love Radio

 

[emeraldrafael]

OA (Original Author) your avy sums up my feelings on this topic rather well, and probably alot of other peoples.

OT: I think they should. Not to be mean or rude, but who is better to raise a Mentally challenged person then another Mentally challenged? They say people who sure like experiences often understand each other best. And there are levels of Mental Retardation. Some people i got to school with are Mentally Challenged (i'm in college, just so you know), and you wouldnt know it until you heard them talk slowly, like they;re thinking about what they have to say before they say it.

 

[lizards]

Not all mentally challenged people have mentally challenged children, nor do all non-mentally challenged people have non-mentally challenged kids.

this is invalid due to the fact that the kid will most likely be taking away by social services and then become a drain on society whether it has the parents defect or not

ultimately no they shouldnt

 

[Isaac The Grape]

Not all mentally challenged people have mentally challenged children, nor do all non-mentally challenged people have non-mentally challenged kids.

this is invalid due to the fact that the kid will most likely be taking away by social services and then become a drain on society whether it has the parents defect or not

ultimately no they shouldnt

Should the mentally challenged have the basic civil right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that is the very founding principle of this country? Should they be treated like human beings with human rights and not marginalized by elitist swine who want to "improve the gene pool"? How about atheists (or Christians, or Muslims, or Scientologists)? Gays? Republicans? Where does it end with you?

Anyone who says that another human being doesn't have the same basic human rights as anyone else needs to practice their own form of population control. The kind that was amply demonstrated by Private Pyle in the bathroom in Full Metal Jacket.

And fuck anyone who disagrees. People like your friend make me sick to my stomach.

First, decide on what, exactly, constitutes at "mentally challenged?" Where do we draw the line and decide A is mentally OK, and B is retarded. If we can't come to a consensus, then I'd let the "mentally challenged" retain their freedom to knock each other up.

 

[Raptor Defence Engineer]

Allowed to, I'll say yes. Advised to, no. Anyone with a genetic disease/disease carrier should be very cautious around having children, until the point that we have all-reaching, government-paid gene therapy. Don't restrict people's rights, but I'd say people should be very careful around it.

All-reaching, government-paid gene therapy is just eugenics by another name. Imagine a world where everybody was "perfect" genetically. Might as well just build humans on assembly lines at that point.

Can you imagine if Mozart were born and raised/educated in modern America? They'd have medicated him into perfect mediocrity, and if his creativity persisted they'd probably have him writing ad jingles.

I'm not normally anti-science, but genetics and the engineering of mankind is an affront to the gods---but more than that, even when I was an atheist I still thought it was an affront to everything that is beautiful about the human animal.

Would you accept an advancement in gene therapy if it was a purely consensual option derived from medical studies, and not required/mandated by the government or society? That's what I would be searching for. I, for example, have diabetes, an inherited condition. If I could receive a treatment that insured my children, as well as their children, were no longer at risk of the disease, I most definitely would seek out such a cure. I do not consider it something that makes me "unique," I consider it a debilitating curse.

Diabetes, cancer, that sort of thing I have no problem with.

But you just know they're going to use this for stuff like autism spectrum disorders (if in fact autism has a genetic component, which hasn't been established one way or the other). I "suffer from" PDD-NOS (or "atypical autism"). I don't consider it a disease, and if someone went into my DNA with a wrench and "fixed" it, I would cease to be the person that those who love me think is so wonderful. That's a big loss for me AND them.

And why stop there? The problem is that once there is a way to create designer children, social norms and expectations will use that to widen the class divide, creating a race of supermen who consider it their right to rule over the imperfect. We won't need government to do it for us---the free market will take that and run with it.

So yeah. Diabetes? Down's syndrome? The breast cancer genes (and genes for whatever other cancers have a genetic link)? That's one thing. But laws have to be passed to make sure it goes that far and no further.

(Medical student firstly)

Interesting side note is that I once came across a professor who believed that cancer was a natural evolutionary progression towards longer life spans. Cancer cells are immortal you see and will divide literally forever. So simply, having evolution work out the kinks in it would potentially decrease the rate at which cells stop regenerating as we age e.g. allowing the elderly to heal quicker as we all know they heal slower than a young person; possibly stopping age related illnesses occurring early etc.

Of course there are arguments against it but I found it an intriguing idea as it would ostensibly provide a theory for why cancer has been becoming more prevalent these days.

On topic; this is essentially eugenics and would never really be allowed by most sensible people to happen.

 

[Isaac The Grape]

One of the main issues to this is, what falls under "mentally challenged"? My brother has issues with the speach part of his brain, a body that dosen't function well unless he is given the correct amount of certain things, and has issues with social relations. He is also the smartest kid of his age I know when it comes to math, he plays with calculaters as we may play with videogames. So where does that fall? To much gra area. I'm not argueing for or against it, just pointing out a glareing flaw. (Oh, and to all the people saying no on the grounds of it "weakening the gene pool", Id like you to think for a momment, how many people are there in the world? What does it really matter if one person is weaker than others? It's like saying "you cant bench 2/3 your weight, you cant breed because only the strongest should survive.")

Yeah. I mean, if you use that logic, genocide of poorer nations makes sense. After all, it's just supply and demand once you remove the value of life.

 

[Unesh52]

Restricting the rights of procreation to certain people sounds like a recipe for disaster. How does one determine if they are fit to give birth to children? Will everyone be forced to go through tests? Who will regulate these tests? Why would these people get to decide what is acceptable? I probably trust the government with more things than most people do, but I would never want them to control breeding. It could only lead to one thing; discrimination on a genetic level. And that's one thing our society could do without.

You know, there are already restrictions about who is allowed to keep their kids. And aren't the mentally ill barred from consenting to sex in the first place? That's for a different reason, but still. I'm just saying that some people aren't fit to have kids. Personally, I think the line shouldn't just be drawn at the disabled.

If it were practical, I would want parents to need to be licensed before they can breed. Think of how many fewer children would be abandoned or abused. And for the more selfish of us, think of how many fewer children would be raised to be petty, criminal, and ignorant. It's astonishingly impractical though, so I won't bother to think of what kind of standards would need to be in place to ensure people weren't being unjustly discriminated against.

All-reaching, government-paid gene therapy is just eugenics by another name. Imagine a world where everybody was "perfect" genetically. Might as well just build humans on assembly lines at that point.

There's a relevant dissimilarity in this disjunctive argument -- er, I mean, those things are different (I was just studying for my critical thinking calss, sorry). The gene therapy thing wouldn't necessarily be mandatory. Except for life threatening genetic disorders, I think people should be left to choose should the technology come around. Also, the possibility of awesome gene-splicing comes to mind... it could start with the desu eyes... then move on to full blown bull-horns!

Bet the Nazis never had a totalitarian society that cool.

 

[Blue_vision]

All-reaching, government-paid gene therapy is just eugenics by another name. Imagine a world where everybody was "perfect" genetically. Might as well just build humans on assembly lines at that point.

Can you imagine if Mozart were born and raised/educated in modern America? They'd have medicated him into perfect mediocrity, and if his creativity persisted they'd probably have him writing ad jingles.

I'm not normally anti-science, but genetics and the engineering of mankind is an affront to the gods---but more than that, even when I was an atheist I still thought it was an affront to everything that is beautiful about the human animal.

You're right; we should just let people suffer from preventable diseases instead.

I'd be against parents screening each of their embryos to make sure it has blue eyes or whatever, but really? Do you think it's just a fun interesting luck of the draw for parents who get a child with Cystic Fibrosis, or for someone who inherited a double allele for Huntington's?

Yeah, Mozart probably wouldn't have been Mozart were he born today. But that's a totally different ballpark in another country that's actually a soccer field instead. I'll agree with you; we're pumping out a bunch of overprotected, spoiled silly kids here in the West, and I'd never want to see genetics or gene therapy let parents play with fate. But we're not talking about that; we're talking about preventing crippling, life-altering genetic diseases.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Whys is 'discrimination on a genetic level' a bad thing, exactly?

You're discriminating against people for things they have no control over. We don't chose what genes we are born with. This is something you can not change. When you discriminate on a genetic level, you're dooming people from the second they are born.

Imagine this; you have had one dram job since you were a child. You've studied and worked throughout your life to get this job. On the surface, you appear to meet all the requirements. You deserve to get this job. But yet you are not given it. Why? Well because another person had qualifications similar to yours. The only reason they were favored was because the employer thought they had superior genes. Even though you meet the qualifications, you can't get this job because of your genes. It might be because your family carries a genetic disease that might affect you later in life, and the employer doesn't want to risk employing you when the other person doesn't carry said disease. There's no guarantee that you will also get the disease, but the employer considers it safer to higher the other person.

Is that fair? You could argue it's logical, but decisions should not always be made purely on logic alone. This is just one example that could be a reality. I'm not even getting the worst case scenarios, in which the government enforces selective breeding in order to ensure that only the "best" genes are passed on to the next generation.

Whys is 'discrimination on a genetic level' a bad thing, exactly?

You're discriminating against people for things they have no control over. We don't chose what genes we are born with. This is something you can not change. When you discriminate on a genetic level, you're dooming people from the second they are born.

-snip-

And so the Gattaca references begin

You know, I never saw that entire movie. Only watched a few short parts of it science. Barely remember it either. Was it good?

You know, there are already restrictions about who is allowed to keep their kids. And aren't the mentally ill barred from consenting to sex in the first place? That's for a different reason, but still. I'm just saying that some people aren't fit to have kids. Personally, I think the line shouldn't just be drawn at the disabled.

There's a world of difference between saying someone can't raise children after proving they are irresponsible and saying someone can't give birth to children because of their genetics. Yes, I know some people are not good parents. I know that some people should not be allowed to raise children. But using genetics to determine who these people are is morally wrong.

 

[Blue_vision]

Whys is 'discrimination on a genetic level' a bad thing, exactly?

You're discriminating against people for things they have no control over. We don't chose what genes we are born with. This is something you can not change. When you discriminate on a genetic level, you're dooming people from the second they are born.

-snip-

And so the Gattaca references begin

EDIT: Though, the government could also mandate that only the purest of race blonde hair, blue eyed men and women reproduce. Or burn towns to the ground for not paying taxes. Or allow companies to dump sludge into rivers (ha!) This seems to be a pretty standard "the government is evil and out to get us" argument. What's more frightening is liberal use of eugenics, but even then it wouldn't be that frightening. Even a "genetically perfect" child could still have disadvantages to an "unadvantaged" one. Strength coming out of any genetic quirks for starters. Simple nurture-based behavioural and physical traits dependent on parenting or random events as a close second.
It's a bad idea for the stupid masses to be deciding how they want their child to turn out, but it shan't bring down the heavens and let spew the fire and brimstone.

 

[vento 231]

I'm probably gonna sound like a dick, but no. They are burdens to the state and just cause more problems, we are over populated already with healthy people. They should be able to have sex, but not have kids, because of all the problems it causes, and it isn't fair to the child. Also, if you want to quote me, don't use the "they're human" arguement, I think it is pretty stupid. I do understand the problems with freedom, and I suppose that is a legitamite arguement, and officials should think of some sort of compromise.