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Lucas

Eugenics-yesturday in the Daily Mail

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...ge_id=1770&ct=5

 

Some couples have had selective IVF to make sure their child is a girl because their families have a history of Autism and most diagnosed Autistics are boys. As I believe the reasons why most diagnosed are male are social and not because there actually are many more Autistic males than female, I think they are of course not making much difference. But the issue is that they are *trying* to eliminate Autism through eugenic means by preventing Autistic people being born. I thought it was going to be at least another decade or so before they even considered doing this, but its happening now.

 

Some of the comments made have made me ill. I've submitted my own but I'm not optomistic about its inclusion.

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I,ve never been able to totally get my head round arguments and debates like this.Aside from my son who has AS, I also have a dd who was born with a genetic defect , not life threatening at all but it does carry a risk of downs and spina bifida .We were offered counselling when we discovered at her 20 week scan that she had this problem.But my mind was already made up,there was no chance we would terminate or even take the risk of an amnio.I ,ve just always felt that you bring your child into the world and hope they will be healthy.There is no gaurantee that they will stay healthy, they could contract a serious illness, become disabled through a accident, recieve a brain injury from a fall, as a parent you would,nt then wish to hand then back would you?.................so why start with your embryo/ un- born child it,s still your child. I hope I have,nt offended anyone , my view might seem quite radical, but really I just feel that once born life holds no guarantee,s of a healthy happy existence for any of us . I can see more severely debilitating illnesses benefitting from this type of science, but not autism...........

Apologises...............I went to the wrong link in the article so I,m just updating my post, I had no idea there was an article on autism aswell............sorry been a bit cabbaged today, this may explain why my post rumbles on a bit.

Edited by Suze

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Note: had IVF been developed one hundred years early, we would likely be routinely eliminating Homosexuals and left-handed people from the gene pool now.

 

I'm off to go read an X-Men comic.

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Oh dear. This is very sad news indeed :(

 

Let's just get the swasticas and gas chambers out now shall we! :angry:

 

Where would we be now without Einstein, Bill Gates et al.

 

Saddened, deeply saddened by what I've seen written there :(

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:oops: sorry just replying again, I missed the original article specific to autism when I first read through the link, what is so upsetting is the comments people have replied with :(

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I heard something similar to this yesterday on that great bastion that is BBC Breakfast News. The research into IVF was being reported and they speculated that maybe the technology could lead to people being able to pick eye colour, hair colour etc. (as per usual - who is really that bothered about eye colour?) but my ears did prick up when austism was mentioned and that couples would be able to choose gender as a way of 'cutting the risk' of ending up with an autistic boy

 

I was not a happy bunny

 

As Lucas says, rather than address the 'problem' of autism this would just erradicate it

Edited by TheNeil

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Yes it is sad and makes me angry that some people are so quick to pass judgement on issues that they demonstrate they have little knowledge of !!!

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Just read through some of the comments... unbelievable the biggoted, smug narrow minded attitude of some of the people who have commented.

 

Lauren

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Won't they all get a shock though when they realise it is probably just as prevalent in girls - but not being picked up in the same way!

 

Animal genetics have shown that when you try to breed for certain traits, you don't actually eradicate the "problems" - you effectively introduce more. It is frightening when you think about it like that.

 

My beautiful 7 yr old daughter has AS and of course I would rather she did not have it - but if I had the choice of having her as she is - bright, witty, loyal, determined - or having a different Rachael, I would choose the way she is. I feel priveleged to have come to understand this beautiful creature and the unusual way her mind works. Sure there are times I feel like running away, but there are times when she spontaneously does something she hasn't done before it's wonderful.

 

Through all the struggling with diagnosis and school (she was diagnosed aged 4) - all i could ever see was the AS. These past few months for the first time, I am beginning to see her! Sure she is different - but she is an individual with rights - some time people lose sight of this don't they!

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I find this all very disturbing and agree with the comments already posted that people are quick to judge and pass opinions on subjects that they know little about. When I read articles like this I am always reminded of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, add in Prozac for Soma and we have just about created the potential for the world he described (not I hasten to add that I'm against Prozac, have taken it and benefitted from it myself). The difficulty, as always, is where do you draw the line between the good that can come from it and the potential for misuse and abuse.

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Even if we had been told Ds1 had a predisposition to ASD before he was born there is no way I would have contemplated not having him. His ASD is part and parcel of his very interesting, funny and intelligent nature.

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When do we stop playing God (or whoever) here :( ? I am personally not a fan of IVF, which is easy to say when you have 3 children. But I think that we are now too clever for our own good and it will all blow up in our faces eventually, and nature has a way of getting round these things of it's own accord.

 

Oracle

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I find many of the comments very worrying. It makes me wonder if they really are indicative of the attitude of society towards AS and ASD. I have also noticed that a high proportion of commentators are Americans.

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At the risk of sounding sanctimonious the negatives of having a child with a disability were not so awful that we couldn't contemplate having another child similarly affected. We have three healthy children as a result, but were prepared for this not to happen.

 

Could that be someone here? :lol::lol:

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Perhaps the eugenics could be applied to eradicate such bigots.There must be a 'tendency to bigotry' and to eradicate THAT would make life more palatable for all those with ASD's who just want to be free to live their own lives.xx

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My friend told me about this yesterday, she wanted to know how I felt about it. I dont get it though because there is every chance a girl could be ASD also - I do agree with the thought that more girls are undiagnosed than boys.

 

Its unbelievable that people would do this. I totally understand it for life threatening conditions but not at all for something like autism.

 

Its very sad actually.

 

Lynne

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Excuse complete ramblings here but I see a strange world where all women who fear having an asd boy, and all those women who are carriers of many other diseases that will affect only their male offspring, where those parents who want their children to do well in school (so opt for a girl I have heard), - where have all the boys gone? Are we to be a world solely of females?

 

Right now, we should think about changing our society so that we create a world where all can be rightfully accommodated - the only reason anyone thinks about interfering is because our world only works in one way and for a particular 'brand' of people - we should change the world, not the individuals.

 

Further, I remember when Kerre was very down and our GP had a chat with him and explained all the wonderful things that asd people had done for the world, both in the Arts and Sciences - she said that it was these people who made the world 'interesting' for all the normal and boring people. Imagine if none of the interesting people are left - only the boring ones.

 

I think this article is very sad.

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good god, what next?

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Excuse complete ramblings here but I see a strange world where all women who fear having an asd boy, and all those women who are carriers of many other diseases that will affect only their male offspring, where those parents who want their children to do well in school (so opt for a girl I have heard), - where have all the boys gone? Are we to be a world solely of females?

 

This is the opposite of what is happening in many third world countries where parents have a preference for boys. Women in india regularly terminate pregnancies if they find out their baby is a girl.

 

Right now, we should think about changing our society so that we create a world where all can be rightfully accommodated - the only reason anyone thinks about interfering is because our world only works in one way and for a particular 'brand' of people - we should change the world, not the individuals.

 

Further, I remember when Kerre was very down and our GP had a chat with him and explained all the wonderful things that asd people had done for the world, both in the Arts and Sciences - she said that it was these people who made the world 'interesting' for all the normal and boring people. Imagine if none of the interesting people are left - only the boring ones.

 

My findings are that most parents would prefer to have happy rounded children who make friends easily and do well at school then become a shop assistant in MFI, rather than have children with AS who are very intelligent but no end of problem at school then end up winning a nobel prize as an adult.

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Just to elaborate on my view of this, I think it is wrong in any case: if it's used to stop Downs children being born, Spina Bonifida, Cancer, etc-it is eugenics no matter what the condition is being targeted. The aim may be to eliminate a disease, but the fact is that it's being done by eliminating people with the disease.

 

It doesn't address the conditions but sorts out the 'problem' of people having them, an easy solution that even removes it's own most severe critics because it eliminates them before birth. Real medicine is hard and can only be done by an advanced society to make life for people better- eugenics can be practiced by any savage.

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The aim may be to eliminate a disease, but the fact is that it's being done by eliminating people with the disease.

 

It doesn't address the conditions but sorts out the 'problem' of people having them, an easy solution that even removes it's own most severe critics because it eliminates them before birth.

 

Hear hear.

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As a quick fact, at the Special School that i've just left, more girls have applied to attend than boys in the past year, but most of them had to be turned away due to lack of faciliities.

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