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Dentin comments on [LINK] Why I'm not on the Rationalist Masterlist - Less Wrong Discussion
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We already practice eugenics, every time we do a genetic test and abort a fetus when it has some horrible transferrable genetic disorder. Frankly, we could do with a bit more of that - there are many, many horrible recessive genetic diseases which people should never have to endure, and which should be eliminated if at all possible. Not doing so strikes me as similar to not trying to cure polio.
And indeed there are plenty of people who object to that (at least where I am -- it may be different in places further away from the Pope).
Could you be more specific? What genetic tests do people do; and which receive objections? Just Down's?
The objection is not to the tests, it's to aborting when you don't like their results.
Are there people who object to that and approve of abortion in other circumstances? If (mostly) not, then this is (mostly) people whose real objection to abortion is for other reasons, for example religious, and make their objections louder in these cases because the negative associations of eugenics allow them to score rhetorical points.
The people I was thinking of when writing that comment (nearly) always oppose to abortion, but since then someone mentioned something called the Autism Genocide Clock and I decided to google for that.
There is a variety of tests, their number grows all the time and some of them are specific to particular gene pools. Prenatal tests for more than 800 genetic disorders have been developed.
For a common example, people with Jewish Ashkenazi ancestry are tested for Tay-Sachs, others are not.
I ask what do people actually do, and what do people actually protest. Army can at least answer the second question. Non-invasive tests for Down's weren't even available before a couple of years ago. Your link appears to be about extensions of that technology, not anywhere near availability. Yes, Tay-Sachs is tested via CVS or amnio, but usually not all Ashkenazim, but only after screening the parents.
That depends on what will insurance pay for and what the parents themselves want. A woman I know who was pregnant about 10 years ago got 5-6 tests as a default (given her insurance, her obstetrician, etc.). Another woman who is still pregnant at the moment got over 10 tests as a default a few months ago.
People who protest are typically pro-life people and they protest anything which could possibly lead to a voluntary abortion.