Quote:
Originally Posted by Berry
You never have to accept other people's definitions, even if they do carry the force of law. For lack of better terms I will say there are disabilities and disadvantages. Having MS with uncontrolable siezures is a disability -- Having the mind of a five year old in a thirty year old body is a disability -- There is not a lot a person can do to get around these things.
On the other hand loss of a hand, arm, foot, leg, speech, hearing, smell, youth, are disadvantages that can and do happen to anyone at any age.
The question then becomes: "Should someone who carries a gene that makes an early disadvantage more likely be allowed to pass that gene on to future generations?"
Then there is the question that is always present: "How far should any government go in protecting its constituants? At what point does it cease to be protection and become persecution?"
I personally believe anyone effected/affected by a decision should have a voice in that decision.
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This is thought-provocative, where do they draw the line between the usefulness of genetics technology and genocide? I suspect this lies somewhere in the murky complexity of ethics and perhaps even the key debates could be well be supported by politics of disabiility. i do not understand the concepts of ethics very well, it is not my area, but my hunch is that, there needs to be a lot more study into this area if should we gain any position to counter this awful movement of technological genocide.
off topic, have any of you watched the film "The Island" a sci-fi setted in not so distant future where medical insurance policies has evolved in such a way that condone and conceal their affairs of medical intervention to support the health of the very rich. What im trying to say here is, that this gene-manipulation movement is heading this way, and that removing 'unwanted' defects is a (ahem) small part towards this end, while right now they are at this stage of 'advancement' of their understanding and their techniques are still in early developmental phase. I hate to say, but this is going to be extremely difficult, to say, "except for deaf babies, it is not a defect" while the medical institutes and their chasing of medical heroisms is not going to help find empathic doctors to to jump fences to support and say "deaf people are right, they have rights, they should be allowed to have deaf babies", like doctors dont think of deafness in terms of lifestyle, they think its a problem, equavalent as researching to eradicate cancer.
Hate to say this even more so that we are so reliant on technology (using it right now on this laptop), technology advancements rely on education of the young, and up and coming technicans, this includes medical technicans!
I sometimes wonder if there are any literatures out there on the connection between technocrats and medicine, if there was (and bound to be) then this would be a good source to base from to develop the arguement to counter the slick use of ethics, and being aware of how societys consciousness are shaped with 'awareness of how health can be changed' that is buying and selling (grown, or genetically duplicated) organs.
I know this seem wacko me saying all this, but im simply trying to highlight the powerful force behind all this science and availbility of this medical intervenion (at present and in future and hopes for the future nonsense-talk) which is believed to enchance the human race, its ideals and utopian dreams, which gives people a false sense of ethics. pretty scary eh?
I feel I need to clarifiy what IS Disability, it is NOT a physical symptom, disabilty refers to the way how society mistreats an individual as some form of sub-human, having a mind of a 5 yo in a 30 yo is not a disability, but a serious body-mind impairment. Thats right it is an impairment. Disability is to do with society, like racism.
Lastly, I'm also saying ethics is not neutral either.