Posted on 02/16/2023 10:51:47 AM PST by Morgana
Disturbing new research indicates more than one third of Americans are okay with selecting and destroying their children as embryos based on DNA tests that predict their likelihood of being smart enough to attend a top-tier college.
A new opinion poll published in the journal Science asked Americans about testing embryos for in vitro fertilization (IVF), an infertility treatment that involves creating embryos outside the womb before implanting them in the mother’s uterus. Often, embryos are destroyed in the process, even though they already are unique human beings at the earliest stage of life.
According to MIT Technology Review, the poll found about 40 percent of Americans likely would test their embryos for signs of intelligence and choose those who exhibit higher capabilities, should such a test exist.
The researchers also asked people if they would choose to genetically modify their children’s DNA at the embryo stage if the technology was safe, and 28 percent said they would, according to the report.
As of yet, it does not appear that anyone is publicly offering DNA tests that predict intelligence, but scientists and ethicists believe they could be coming in the near future. Currently, tests are available for genetic abnormalities that causes diseases and disorders.
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Here’s more from the report:
As far as MIT Technology Review could determine, no child has yet been picked from a petri dish on the basis of its educational potential score. But that moment may not be far off. Early users of Genomic Prediction’s health scores who’ve spoken about their experience come from segments of society with strong preoccupations with cognitive performance.
One couple who were customers of Genomic Prediction, Simone Collins and her husband Malcolm, say they are building a large family using IVF and genomic health prediction tests. While they were not able to access educational prowess scores for their last child, Collins says next time could be different.
In an email, Collins said she has “identified companies” that “will provide this information.” She added, “We’ll absolutely be factoring it in with future embryo selection.”
The results have ethicists and scientists concerned about future implications, and many are urging countries to pass regulations regarding the practice.
Michelle N. Meyer, a co-author of the report and bioethics professor with Geisinger Health System, expressed serious concerns about their findings.
“I certainly don’t think this is something good,” Meyer told MIT. “The bigger risk is saying nothing and letting this unfold against a laissez-faire regulatory and market system.”
She and co-authors Patrick Turley and Daniel J. Benjamin warned that such tests, if or when they do exist, could “exacerbate existing inequalities” in society, according to the report. In other words, rich people who can afford IVF could select their children based on tests about their intelligence and potentially even their height, weight, hair and eye color.
“For the foreseeable future and maybe forever, this technology is going to be available only to people who are already wealthy or are privileged in other ways,” Meyer said. “To the extent that this does have an impact, and gives any offspring a boost, [this] is not something that is going to be equally accessible to everybody.”
For pro-life advocates, another huge concern is that more human lives – children – will be destroyed simply because they have traits that their parents deem “undesirable.”
How do you determine an unborn baby’s intelligence? With genetic testing? How’s that going to go over? - there is a very strong correlation between intelligence and race.
Also, these insane people would be devising a test to find out if the unborn baby “is” trans. Babies “found to be” trans would be spared.
[No one is trans. Some people delude themselves into thinking they are trans.]
Don't these parents realize that genetic intelligence comes from THEM????? They are the idiots producing the low IQ baby. LOL.
How well does IQ equate to moral and wise? I’m not sure there is much of one. I’ll take a society of mostly wise, virtuous people regardless of the average IQ.
Not OK, but I *was* going to say that this would be a great way of ensuring that the Democrats go pro-life: tell them that abortion will weed out stupid people.
Just how do they think DNA would indicate how intelligent an embryo was? Spell out, “smart kid” like Charlotte’s Web?
Even if this was acceptable (it isn’t), I wouldn’t trust them to get the results right.
When my wife was pregnant with child #5, they told us some test indicted a significant possibility of Downs, and they gave us information on abortion. We politely told them we weren’t interested. We were ready for whatever God gave us.
She was valedictorian of her high school class and has a 4.0 through 2-1/2 years of college. Granted, she was probably the 4th-most academically gifted among our six kids. Her brother (child #3) still gives her a hard time because there were at least 4 kids in his class who would have been top of her class.
Small schools (average class size of 30) can vary a lot like that. Our two others who might have been competitive went to a much larger school (class size 300). Our youngest one (senior this year) is up against a kid who got a 36 on the ACT, and then took it again for fun (and got another 36.)
Most of the people who support abortion for low intelligence would have been aborted for that reason.
If could be done by aborting children of multi-generational welfare recipients. That would be immoral, though. A more ethical choice would be mandatory birth control.
If you can’t feed ‘em, don’t breed ‘em.
Would only work if we made it retroactive.
Excerpted right out of Josef Mangele’s Book describing appropriate candidates for euthanasia to rid the Third Reich of the burden of useless eaters! The Doctor of Death currently has many proteges in America’s Democrat political party! And of course that’s one reason that Herr Klaus Schwab and his WEF is so popular among today’s Democrat leadership.
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