Is genetic technology the new “Eugenics”?

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What is Eugenics?
Definition 1: The practice and belief of aiming to improve the gene quality of the human race.
Definition 2: the science of improving a population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics.

Eugenics was big during the years of the Nazi Regime where the poor, mentally ill, blind, deaf, developmentally disabled, promiscuous women, homosexuals, and racial groups were considered degenerate or “unfit.

Eugenics was ALSO used by Japan starting in the 1940s to limit the birth of children with “inferior” biological traits. Today in Japan there are still forced sterilisations and abortions for people bearing children with genetic disorders.

What is genetic technology?
Genetic technology allows for people to test genes for disorders, chances of cancer, actual illnesses. Recently, editing embryos has been added to the possibilities too .

A process known as Amniocentesis is where a diagnostic test can be carried out during pregnancy during 1 to 10 weeks to find out whether the unborn baby (foetus) could develop, or has developed, an abnormality or serious health condition.

Additionally, recent research has shown that we can even edit human embryos and pre-implantation genetic testing (PGT) exists to test embryos for conditions or abnormalities!


**FOR MORE READING **.
UK scientists edit DNA of human embryos
Pre-implantation Genetic Testing

The implications
Genetics used to be science fiction, but now it is fiction and in real life.

- Partners who use non-invasive genetic testing can find out if their child will develop cancer, disorders, intellectual disabilities etc… can abort their children.
- Partners who are using IVF who want embryos that are NOT affected by the disorder can prevent the condition from being passed on to the next generation by choosing the “GOOD” ones.
- Partners will be able to “edit” how their baby will look and turn out like.

Organisations such as Spinal Muscular Atrophy Australia, the US, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists are ALL recommending for genetic testing before conception.

In the Case of China and The US….
There were high rates of uses of kits (2 million in 2013) in China detect down Syndrome. In the US, sex selection for IVF is allowed and is commonly done (it has even become its own industry).

“In China, if you want to abort a baby with Down’s syndrome, no one will scold you.”

In the case of Iceland.
Down syndrome is actually disappearing due to 85% of pregnant women in Iceland choosing to take prenatal testing. Society in Iceland has devalued diversity and essentially have deemed anything with a disability bad.

A striking sentence from the article... "Deciding that people with Down syndrome don’t live worthwhile lives can snowball into a groupthink situation. It will become less and less acceptable to raise a child with Down syndrome, and that will translate into fewer support services available to parents who decide to buck the trend. "

Eugenics vs genetic technology
- Eugenics seeks the perfect race/ genes via science.
- Genetic is used by SOME to have the best healthy baby and so that their offspring will be better too.

The difference… consent.

One is by forcefully done by members of society/government, the other is done by choice. An individual can never be forced into testing or be required to take action, such as sterilization, based on the results of a genetic test. 

Genetic testing is much like eugenics but on a much smaller scale in the aspect that it aims to get rid of bad aspects of the human gene (disorders etc).
The one’s that aren’t good are getting thrown out.

Now that we know so much about genetics… questions NEED to be asked.

Questions to be asked
-   Should human embryos be allowed to be edited?
-   Should Gene editing be allowed at all?
-   Should people be allowed to chosen eggs to develop into a baby?
-   Is genetic testing the way that society should go?
-   Is there an element of vilification of the disabled? (in the aspect that they are Unwanted)
-   Should babies found to have bad genes be aborted?
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Your thoughts? (and especially your answers to these questions)
~~ These are heavy questions that aren’t easy to answer. Even I don’t have a proper answer to these Q’s ~~
If someone had 5 embryos, they could say get rid of 4 embryos (which could be potential kids). Additionally, people in early pregnancies could test and then abort in Victoria.

~~ I am not against abortions, but genetic testing is very iffy in terms of ethics and there are already repercussions in some countries.~~.