Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

And frequently we decide they’re damaged. Seems like its really the rest of us who are damaged.

Probably in general, but not as much as you'd think.

For example as a gay dude, people still hate gay guys (lesbians are far more accepted). But they're just much more quiet about it now, and even if they don't hate us we still "gross" many people out, which affects their decisions due to perception of us.

I notice that some of the teens my kids are friends with are pretty weird in ways that would have invited extreme bullying when I was their age and they don't seem to have the same troubles. However, I still hear about some bullying cases. Maybe that's changing for the better too though, when I was their age we seemed to actively hide that we were bullied from adults and now adults are often (ineffectively) involved.

I do think people - and especially kids - are generally nicer and more accepting than they were back in the 80s when I grew up. I wonder if this is related to the fairly dramatic drop in violent crime statistics we've been seeing over the last several decades?

That really depends on where you are in the world right at this minute.

It's just fashion I think - for the last 10-15 years the idea of being a nerd who works for Google or whatever has been relatively cool.

I have two teenagers, and bullying is still extremely common in school.

Perhaps the range of acceptable weirdness has broadened, I'm not sure, but it's discouraging to hear their stories of just how mean kids can be.

You’re right the world is a lot more accepting. No matter how much things improve and how positive the trajectory though, there will be someone online who tells us it’s not enough

That's not what they said.

Youre right, its a though question. Then again free will and the concept of "self" is an illusion.

Lets see where the world will go in this regard, only time will tell

Five out of six ain’t bad. Though, if my man boobs get a bit bigger…

> big-dicked, big boobed

And Facebook is already, with no ironic self-awareness, showing me ads for both.

The irony will be that once everybody is that, it won't be attractive.

Interesting.

Where do traits that aren't genetic come from then?

Do you live or regularly interact with someone who has Down Syndrome, or have any kind of data that would support the idea that people with Down Syndrome are exceptionally violent?

What a terrible thing to say. You have a lot to learn about them.

What? Are you talking about real, live people with Down Syndrome? Surveys have consistently shown that they and those who live with them (which is no safari) are happier than everyone else. That wouldn't make much sense if "most" of what they bring to the world is "unpleasant interactions."

Right, there’s eueugenics and dyseugenics.

no slippery slope here, nope.

That is not a simple test. Ask any straight person if they’d want to turn gay, the vast majority would say no. My guess is they’d say no if you asked the same question about their children.

But I’m gay, and while there are pros and cons to it, I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. And I don’t think just because someone else doesn’t want to be me is a reasonable bar for eradication.

To be clear, I’m not saying the two are equivalent, just pointing out that you need a better argument than “you don’t want this for yourself or your children, right?”.

As the parent of a child with Down syndrome, I really appreciate the way you and the parent comment approached this topic. Thank you.

Tiny nit, in the US it’s “Down syndrome”, not “Down’s”. Apparently we name conditions with a possessive if named for someone with it (“Lou Gehrig’s”) and without the possessive if named for, say, the person who first described the condition in a medical journal.

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Down screening is done at like 16 weeks. At 16 weeks that's hardly a life.

Also you are being very dismissive by hand-waving away lifestyle. Quality of life is a significant factor in medical decisions. Many people choose short high-qol lives over longer low-qol lives.

I love animals, I love people, I love dancing Down-syndrome people.

The question is who is responsible for them and what it means to those or society.

Let those ethicists take care of a Down-syndrome person one year, then ask them again.

About lifestyle and such.

Ethicize can everybody. The real questions are more down to earth. Pun not intended.

By the way, my partner and I are of different views and because of her I know there are very different types, some are totally self sufficient and work.

As always, truth is somewhere in between. Do not eradicate, let people choose. There will be people who terminate, others will not. Let those people pay a share who take the risk and then put their child to social care. But be human and society should help and pay a big ahsre too.

How much? I have no idea. We would need the exact numbers, other social projects, a good discussion forum, tests before people comment. I probably have no ida about Down syndrome and still, I am just being commenting.

I think generally a big misunderstanding that there is one solution and one way. We should always just find a middle way, listening to each other, learning, voting, discussing. Keeping freedom of choice and responsibility of own choices in balance.

I've heard this expressed as existence versus life. Nobody owes it to to give up their life for the life of another, let alone if all that can be hoped for is the mere existence of another.

It is a sound pragmatic logic (ignoring few corner cases), but people deciding things in such hard situation often don't decide purely on logic, if at all.

It's very easy to ask everyone else to support your financial decisions.

Correcting what is essentially a developmental defect (albeit a defect that occurs in the germ cells rather than in the womb) isn't eugenics. It's not caused by any genes carried by the parents, it's caused by a failure in the development process, specifically meiosis. Would preventing fetal alcohol syndrome be eugenics? It's caused by changes in gene expression from alcohol exposure after all.

There's a huge range of chromosomal anomalies. You don't see the vast majority of them because the pregnancy self terminates. It's something the human body is already doing.

People with down syndrome are great people who live rich lives. But along with developmental disabilities they suffer from a great many health problems and have severely shortened life spans. Perhaps the future is such therapies will be able to initially focus on these secondary effects.

I don't think methods of preventing chromosomal anomalies are eugenics, since such anomalies are already not inheritable.

It's not eugenics, because Down syndrome is not inherited. There is no Down's genes to eliminate. Terminating down syndrome babies doesn't reduce the rate of Down syndrom in the next generation, and nobody is doing it for that goal.

The main evil of WW2 eugenics was preventing certain people from having children based on arbitrary rules.

Aborting a fetus with trisomia so that the couple can try again for a healthy child is nothing like that.

Dating apps and services with a beauty/salary standard and long prison sentences for the worst criminals are also a form of eugenics. Many kinds of societal and political changes have a eugenic or dysgenic effect on the population, and I'd prefer to live in a society that has more eugenic policies.

When you consider with which woman to conceive children, consciously or unconsciously, you are engaging in eugenics. It’s fine. Forced sterilizations aren’t but we’re not talking about those.

There isn’t a set of magic words people use (eugenics, isms/phobias) where the person accused of said word must prove that’s not the case before he can continue. “It’s eugenics” isn’t a reason to shut someone down.

Yes, that is a legitimate argument to make in a cruel, uncaring (most of the time) world. Lots of regretful parents out there who would take it back if they could. All life is temporary. Quality of life for all involved is a material consideration.

Why is that bad? When the topic is abortion, not being born is considered a good thing for the child, whose life prospects aren't so good on account of the economic conditions of his mother.

I'm a bit torn on this. We're all dependent on other people one way or another. Individuals with Downs are more dependent, but it's a spectrum and they can still have meaningful lives. Meanwhile healty "independent" individuals can live entirely tragic and arguably pointless lives devoid of love and filled with anger.

That said, I'm still pro screening for Downs in fetuses. What I'm trying to say is that I'd do the screening for me as the parent. Not for the person to be born.

Why do you think people with Down syndrome can’t “achieve independence and a life of their own”? And what makes you think they, or their families, see their existence as suffering?

We were given 1 in 21 from the nuchal transparency on the 12 week scan, then we did CVS testing to find out for sure.

Terminating on 1/100 without any further testing seems crazy to me. Of course, our scans and screening were all 'free' on the NHS, so there was no cost to getting extra data.

Wait, am I reading this wrong or did they suggest abortion to avoid a mere 1% risk of Down syndrome?

What is your point, that variance exists? I'm not sure I'd play Russian roulette even with a 100 chamber cylinder. 99 people might come away with an anecdote though.

I have a cousin with DS. You have to be committed and have the means to raise a child with extreme needs. Many of them will live with their parents their entire lives and will not develop cognitively beyond their tweens (hence the Britney Spears anecdote above). The ones that do move out tend to have to go to a place that specializes in assisting them. They can also have pretty extreme health issues.

Yes, they can be beautiful people that bring light to others around them, but those others also don't typically get exposed to the behind the scenes struggles of the entire family to cope with this.

Some people are prepared to do this; I don't judge the ones that decide they're not. I would hate for someone to go into it not understanding what they're signing up for.

At 2 months, there's still no "someone" to speak of. It's an inch long, with some foundational structures of the nervous system beginning to form.

My partner and I tested for it. We had a discussion and agreed a positive down’s result would not affect our decision to have the baby, but we were testing for other things anyway and it seemed like having the information earlier rather then later would help up prepare.

At some point you have to choose an arbitrary line in the sand, or otherwise the universe is a single being.

All lines are arbitrary.

How does the reasoning behind the choice to end a pregnancy matter? If abortion is acceptable at a given point in pregnancy, the reason behind making the choice shouldn't be "cruel". How would it be any less cruel if it was a healthy pregnancy but the woman was not ready to raise a child?

For the record, I'm pro-choice. It's just kind of weird that people are OK with abortion but only in weird certain circumstances. I get timing--if a fetus is viable, why someone would think that's too late to make that choice. But not the motivation behind it

It's hard to imagine a treatment cost so high that it wouldn't be worth the USG paying for it. Down syndrome kids and adults have some quantifiable economic cost; normal adults are worth some other quantifiable economic benefit; the difference is going to be significantly more than the cost of treatment.

While "what is normal" is a reasonable question, a normal development is certainly closer to something that allows folks to achieve most things in any career/hobby/pursuit they choose.

Normal development starts with having the normal number of chromosomes. I would think this is elementary biology.

Such that doesn't see you infertile and dead by 30.

Down syndrome has significant developmental effects beyond mental impairment, lifespans are considerably shorter and while that's improving that doesn't take into account quality of life, medical complications are almost inevitable.

People are giving you shit because Down Syndrome sucks, but being deaf sucks too, and withholding hearing from kids of deaf adults is and was child abuse.

> cochlear implants

Cochlear implants are reversible. A genetic disease is not.

There is absolutely no benefit to Down Syndrome.

Most do not have the cognitive abilities for these kinds of philosophical debates.

I used to live near a down syndrome living facility. Essentially a house converted into a care facility in a neighborhood. ~8 - 10 people with downs lived there. Very few visitors (parents), almost all the cars belonged to the nurses. Isolated from everyone they lived around and kept away from the neighbors (I'm sure to the neighbors relief). required constant care. I don't think its a life most would choose.

No. Down Syndrome leads to an objectively worse outcome for the affected individuals. And their parents, I might add.

We should not let compassion for these people obstruct some basic facts. My only consideration would be the potential risks and side effects that are to be expected for any medical intervention. But if we were expecting a child that was diagnosed with Down Syndrome, I would not hesitate for a second to give this child the chance for a normal life. And us parents the chance for normal parenthood.

The word "them" has been used for centuries in cases where the writer may want to refer to a subject, or subjects, of no specific gender. I wonder why it's suddenly bothering you.

genetics doesn’t care about your feelings. If a human has the genetic issue (issue with cell division on a specific chromosome…i forget which one), they’ll typically have severe developmental challenges in childhood. And if unlucky, end up nonverbal.

I’m pretty sure most scientists would consider being able to communicate effectively with your own species, “normal”. Regardless of what animal you are. Just like it’s normal to have 5 fingers as a human. But some humans have more or less. That’s just…life.

No need to be unnecessarily sensationalist. I do agree that using the term “normal” should give someone pause. But warning bells? Depends on context…like everything in life. :)

Any time someone uses the word "normal", I reach for my wallet, to check if it's still there

The heresy of heresies was common sense.

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As a conservative, my position on genetic intervention is about ethics, human digniity, and the sanctity of life and not some kind of blanket opposition to treating genetic disorders.

I have no moral problem with a therapeutic intervention that improves a life by treating a debilitating disorder with no cost of life.

I will have moral problems when those ideals are inevitably twisted and loosened over time to not just treat disorders, but pick attributes like intelligence, strength, skin color, attractiveness, etc.

Older women may not produce that many eggs, if any at all. And each harvest costs multiple thousands, so it’s not all that clear cut.

Harvesting eggs can be a huge strain both physically, emotionally and financially. And if you're older, and thus have elevated risk, you might get just a one or a few eggs per harvest.

Now factor in that the success rate of eggs turning into viable embryos that can be transferred back into the mother can be low. Even if you harvest say 10 eggs, a good catch, you may very well end up with just 1-2 viable embryos from those 10 eggs. And that's before considering trisomy as discussed here.

The final kicker is that harvesting takes time. You might well only be able to harvest a few times per year. And success rate drops quickly once you're past 38 or so.

To expand on what notimetorelax said, egg harvesting is a low risk but not a zero risk procedure which involves preparatory hormone injections, twilight sedation, and ultimately sticking a pretty fat needle into the ovaries. There's roughly a 1 in 1000 chance of serious complications for any woman that goes through it. If you're over 40 and your last round of harvesting only produced a handful of eggs cells and all of them with some kind of defect, repairing a damaged egg or zygote would be much less risky for the mother. What exactly the cost of a treatment based upon this discovery would be, I have no idea, but both processes are resource intensive.