Are we trying to create a super race of humans?

Question

In the year 2525----
Remember the lyrics to that song? Where you can pick your baby from a test tube? Well I was watching the news this morning and they were discussing genetics. How women can pick sperm of the "perfect" man for artificial insemination. How anyone that plans to get pregnant should have genetic counseling for reasons such as --if the mans testicles are small they can not cool down, which will could cause the child to have autism. If you have manic depression or phobia's you should think twice about having children. The first thing that came to my mind is Hitler--short of killing the "inferior" are we trying to create this perfect race? I don't know about you but I got pregnant and took what god gave me, thankfully they were normal and healthy, but irregardless if they were or not I would have loved them unconditionally. How do you all percieve this genetic stuff?

Chickenb---I only heard this yesterday. There are studies that show, that a mans testicles need to cool off, therefore need to " hang" low. Men with small testicles, according to this genetics specialist, have warmer semen, therefore, inferior sperm. This was on TV yesterday on the news that comes on before Regis and Kelly, maybe you could look it up on the web site NBC.com

Answer 1

I agree this is dangerous territory. Could you point me to the study about size of testicles influencing autism? I've never heard such a thing.

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I can't find it. I'll keep my eyes open, though. A word of caution with newscasts-they are notorious for spreading misleading information about autism. I wouldn't take anything I saw on the news at face value without finding the actual study published somewhere and peer reviewed. There seems to be this mad dash to find the cause of autism and these studies usually fail to find a link and get buried but the damage is already done as people remember seeing it on the news but never hear that the data did not end up supporting the original hypothesis. A classic example of this is the vaccine causes autism hypothesis. To date, there still isn't one (credible) study that shows a link but a large mass of people are convinced that's exactly what happened. The media fanned the flames of the debate for ratings and many people were (and still are) mislead.

Back to your original question, though, I do see an eugenics movement going on in America similar to that of the "Good Germans" of yesteryear. If a baby is not flawless in every way, their life is not worth living in the eyes of these people.
Ask any Down's person. Since the development of the prenatal screening, 90% of them are aborted despite dramatically improved quality of life for them today. I think they would disagree their lives aren't worth living. I see the same thing on the horizon for autistic individuals and it bothers me. I have a stake in this as I have a child on the autistic spectrum and family members as well. It's a small relief to see there are others out there who see this happening and are alarmed as I am. Genetic variation is critical to the survival of any species and humans are no exception. To homogonize our race is to hasten its demise IMHO.

Answer 2

I find it scary ! When I was having children we did not know the sex until the baby was born. I guess things are moving to fast for me now ! If they find that your baby may have a defect now abortion is at times recommended. It reminds me of dog breeders pure bred dogs are now coming with warnings because of so much in breeding for the perfect dog they have bad hips and other problems ! I don;t think others are making the connections that you and I are !