[Myrddin]

Precisely how it does so may ultimately depend on society’s response to a simple question: Is the world really better off without people with disabilities?

Steven Hawking (ALS). Beethoven (deaf), Van Gogh (mentally ill), John Nash (Nobel laureate mathemation, schizophrenic), Helen Keller (blind and deaf).

[Gene Eric]

I appreciate your point.

I would happily make the exception to provide well-managed, tax-payer funded assistance to the families and providers that attend to those we all agree are needy.

[Sherman Logan]

There is no reason to believe Beethoven’s deafness had any genetic basis.

It is not known what Van Gogh’s mental illness was caused by, but odds are it was not genetic.

Nobody has a clue at this point in time what causes schizophrenia, but a simple genetic cause is unlikely.

Helen Keller was born perfectly normal and lost her sight and hearing as the result of disease when a toddler.

Most birth defects are not caused by simple genetic defects but by complex interactions between genes and intrauterine development events. Or simply by the intrauterine events alone.

My point is that claims that we will be able to weed out “defective” people are wildly overblown. Most defects are not caused directly by genetic problems.

Downs’ Syndrome is not a good example of where we’re headed. It is one of the few problems that is both common and easy to test for.

[freedomfiter2]

Four out of five ain’t bad.