I haven't seen the movie, but it's something I've worried about - there are already intimations of health insurance companies that refuse to insure people who carry the Huntington's gene or that of other diseases, after all. It's a logical enough extension of the ability to genetically test for diseases to end up in a society where only those people who had the money to pay for pre-natal testing and/or post-natal "genetic correction" will be not only healthy, but allowed to serve in various jobs/get health insurance/have children.
As you say, we're pretty close to it now. We can't yet find out or alter some of the critical qualities (prenatal testing for intelligence, for example), but we CAN identify whether fetuses carry any number of genetic abnormalities, and is it an unreasonable extrapolation to wonder if today's aborted Trisomy 21 fetus or surgically corrected in-womb heart defect is a step towards tomorrow's genetically enhanced child? Furthermore, of course, if the rich already get the best health care money can buy.... it's logical enough that the same would be true of this. After all, it's already true that if you have the $12K to drop *per treatment* on IVF for as long as it takes, you're a lot more likely to get the baby you want than someone who can't afford to spend that kind of money. Presumably, in the future if you have the money to pay for the best baby that's scientifically possible, you'll get it. (If not inside the US, then elsewhere.)
In short, I don't find it particularly implausible that we'll see the beginnings of such a society in our lifetimes. And I'm not encouraged by that. Of course, it also depends on whether the result is a very limited super-elite and the "default" is people who are no less healthy and no more discriminated against than is now the case, or bucketloads of money are required to have a life that's even marginally tolerable. (In other words, will it be like modern America, where Bill Gates can buy anything he likes but most of those in the middle class are doing OK, or will it be a question of the Bill Gateses of the world tilting the balance so that the remainder are reduced to squalid lives of grinding poverty and misery in the underclass?)
I'd be interested in seeing some data on whether IVF babies are, in general, healthier than regularly conceived babies. Given that they pretty much implant all they can get, and given that a number of those embryos don't make it (naturally- I'm not talking about those which might be aborted out of a "need" to carry fewer fetuses) I wouldn't be surprised if those children have the same sorts of health issues as others.
I also see nothing wrong with correcting problems in-womb if possible, given that waiting can be much more costly and painful. I really think there would need to be some sort of massive event in society to get to your second scenario where most people live in squalid poverty. I don't see that the advantages of genetic baby-engineering would catapult those children well and above the rest of the population, creating some super-human superior "race." Of course, I could be wrong, but keep in mind that scientists can't completely dismiss the "nurture" part of the nature vs. nurture debate- which means that IF some people did become super-people it wouldn't mean that they wouldn't die of car accidents, heroin ODs, or something else; it also doesn't mean that they'd instantly become heads of some sinister corporation dedicated to the subjugation of the rest of humanity.
I'm sorry, I jsut realized I was terribly unclear - by "the baby you want," I didn't mean "a baby genetically pre-selected to your desires," but rather "a baby." That is, someone who can afford all the cycles of IVF they need is more likely to end up with a successfully completed pregnancy than someone who can't. (Nothing's guaranteed, and it doesn't always work no matter how long you try, but "more likely.")
IVF babies are actually slightly *more* prone to health problems, preliminary studies have suggested; possibly the procedure bypasses some challenges that eliminates "less fit" naturally conceived embryos.
I also don't think my latter scenario is likely, but it's the one postulated by most of these dystopic future fictions, so I wanted to include it. As for the rest, we've seen science make huge strides in what can be identified and corrected just in the past 20 years; I can't say how far progress can march, as it were.
(I also agree with in-utero correction as it's currently used; fetuses don't just recuperate well, they heal *completely,* without even a scar. It's only the future possibilities of the technology for prenatal correction that are worrisome.)
Well, reading your thoughts (particularly about the ramifications for health insurance) makes me think that this type of medicine could likely reduce the overall cost of health care on society - but I expect there will be several painful decades of paradigm shift before we find a way to distribute it fairly and equitably.
I agree, on both counts. "Genetic profiling" to determine who needs what type of preventative care could be a huge boon; on the other hand, flatly denying any kind of health coverage to anyone with a risky gene (and eventually, once we identify thousands or millions of possibilities, will there be anyone who *isn't* carrying at least one?) is unfair. So I suspect, as you do, that there'll "be several painful decades of paradigm shift before we find a way to distribute it fairly and equitably," based on the current decision of insurers to deny coverage.
(For that matter, there are women now who choose to have "prophylactic mastectomies" - one or both breasts removed while still healthy, because of the immensely high risk of breast cancer they believe they have. While I'm fine with someone *opting for* that degree of extreme response, I'd be somewhat distressed if it were mandated by one's insurer in order to maintain coverage....)
right. frankly I'm surprised health insurance companies aren't mandating our diets - a move that would probably be good for the health of our nation, but the national health benefits would be outweighed by the fundamental social injustice of it.
Oh, I bet it's coming. Blue Cross already sends me monthly "health newsletters" that are nearly always diet tips! :) Not that that's a bad thing - like Oriana, I like insurers who focus on suggesting preventative care - but it does imply that their attention is already focused in that direction.
Preventive care is absolutely a great thing... but our health care system has this amazing ability to twist all kinds of good things into instruments of inadvertent injustice in the name of "cost savings".
Heh. Yeah, that's why I'm a bit of a pessimist on the subject by this point. (Or, as someone was recently quoted as saying in Time about an entirely different topic, "a paranoid alarmist pinhead.")
As you say, we're pretty close to it now. We can't yet find out or alter some of the critical qualities (prenatal testing for intelligence, for example), but we CAN identify whether fetuses carry any number of genetic abnormalities, and is it an unreasonable extrapolation to wonder if today's aborted Trisomy 21 fetus or surgically corrected in-womb heart defect is a step towards tomorrow's genetically enhanced child? Furthermore, of course, if the rich already get the best health care money can buy.... it's logical enough that the same would be true of this. After all, it's already true that if you have the $12K to drop *per treatment* on IVF for as long as it takes, you're a lot more likely to get the baby you want than someone who can't afford to spend that kind of money. Presumably, in the future if you have the money to pay for the best baby that's scientifically possible, you'll get it. (If not inside the US, then elsewhere.)
In short, I don't find it particularly implausible that we'll see the beginnings of such a society in our lifetimes. And I'm not encouraged by that. Of course, it also depends on whether the result is a very limited super-elite and the "default" is people who are no less healthy and no more discriminated against than is now the case, or bucketloads of money are required to have a life that's even marginally tolerable. (In other words, will it be like modern America, where Bill Gates can buy anything he likes but most of those in the middle class are doing OK, or will it be a question of the Bill Gateses of the world tilting the balance so that the remainder are reduced to squalid lives of grinding poverty and misery in the underclass?)
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I also see nothing wrong with correcting problems in-womb if possible, given that waiting can be much more costly and painful. I really think there would need to be some sort of massive event in society to get to your second scenario where most people live in squalid poverty. I don't see that the advantages of genetic baby-engineering would catapult those children well and above the rest of the population, creating some super-human superior "race." Of course, I could be wrong, but keep in mind that scientists can't completely dismiss the "nurture" part of the nature vs. nurture debate- which means that IF some people did become super-people it wouldn't mean that they wouldn't die of car accidents, heroin ODs, or something else; it also doesn't mean that they'd instantly become heads of some sinister corporation dedicated to the subjugation of the rest of humanity.
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IVF babies are actually slightly *more* prone to health problems, preliminary studies have suggested; possibly the procedure bypasses some challenges that eliminates "less fit" naturally conceived embryos.
I also don't think my latter scenario is likely, but it's the one postulated by most of these dystopic future fictions, so I wanted to include it. As for the rest, we've seen science make huge strides in what can be identified and corrected just in the past 20 years; I can't say how far progress can march, as it were.
(I also agree with in-utero correction as it's currently used; fetuses don't just recuperate well, they heal *completely,* without even a scar. It's only the future possibilities of the technology for prenatal correction that are worrisome.)
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(For that matter, there are women now who choose to have "prophylactic mastectomies" - one or both breasts removed while still healthy, because of the immensely high risk of breast cancer they believe they have. While I'm fine with someone *opting for* that degree of extreme response, I'd be somewhat distressed if it were mandated by one's insurer in order to maintain coverage....)
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