The implications of genetic screening

An interesting article recently appeared on Slate. It relates a news story of genetic screening. The article is certainly on the right track with its appeal to call genetic screening what it is: eugenics. But it does not go quite far enough.

If we start screening embryos for cancer genes and start destroying the ones that have them, what are we really doing? We are sparing those who are born the disease, yes. But we are also saying that those creatures who could develop cancer are undesirable. We are saying, essentially, "We don't want you polluting our gene pool!" This is undeniable:

The embryos were not selected according to gender, so it is a coincidence the baby was a girl, doctors said. Even if they had tried to choose a male embryo, this would not have eradicated the cancer gene because a boy could still carry it and pass it on to future generations. (Mail Online)

Think for a moment of any person you know, or know of, who has, or has had, cancer. Think about what they mean to you. Think about what life means to them. If they had been screened as an embryo, they would have been destroyed. They never would have been born. Does genetic screening still seem like a good idea?

It is only a small step to carry this screening over to other areas. And what will be the first of those areas? Teratism. If the norms can screen out those who would be born with flippers or dwarfism or other deformites and disabilities, they will.

Let's be clear before we go on, people with disabilities are not necessarily a burden on society. Even those who might not be able to support themselves are no more a burden than the millions of able-bodied people the world over who refuse to get a job or who commit crimes or who are just, simply, jerks.

This may not seem like a problem to some people, and that is precisely the problem. Disability will never be entirely wiped out, as accidents will always have the potential of creating new members. These people will suffer even more from society's prejudices, though, if they live in a world where their kind is virtually nonexistent and largely regarded as undesirable. In a world that destroys the disabled before they are born, will they destroy them after they are made?

All genetic screening does is allow society to eliminate the disabled before they become big enough to make the norms feel guilty about getting rid of them.