Question

1. Is the decision to prevent or end a pregnancy that would otherwise lead to the birth of a child with a genetic defect - for example, Trisomy 21 - a eugenic measure? Explain your answer.

2. Do you think that the more widespread use of genetic testing and karyotyping will have an effect on allele frequencies and occurrence of certain diseases within the population? If so, what might be the impact on society as a whole?

3. Suppose we could identify specific genes and alleles that can clearly be demonstrated to result in serious antisocial behavior, such as extreme violence or disregard for life. If this were the case, would you favor the use of eugenics to decrease these alleles within the population? Why or why not? If so, what eugenics method would you advocate (education, involuntary sterilization, voluntary sterilization, etc.)?

Answer 1

1. Eugenics is a science which desires to improve human society by trying to create more desirable gene pool in the society i.e it encourages people with desirable traits to mate more and more so that their offsprings would also possess desirable traits. Thus this is kind of positive eugenics. On the contrary negative eugenics discourages people with undesirable traits to mate together as it will increase the undesirable traits which are not good for society. For example in the above case to, end a pregnancy that would otherwise lead to the birth of a child with a genetic defect is a kind of negative eugenic measure i.e to discourage the undesirable trait.

2. Genetic testing is a type of medical test that identifies changes in chromosomes, genes, or proteins. The results of a genetic test can confirm or rule out a suspected genetic condition or help determine a person's chance of developing or passing on a genetic disorder. Karyotyping is the process of pairing and ordering all the chromosomes of an organism, thus providing a genome-wide snapshot of an individual's chromosomes. Now let us see what allele frequency is? Allele frequency, or gene frequency, is the relative frequency of an allele at a particular locus in a population, expressed as a fraction or percentage. Specifically, it is the fraction of all chromosomes in the population that carry that allele. Thus genetic testing or karyotyping would enable to detect few alleles that are responsible for causing a disease hence by knowing if the embryo contains such genes and thus eliminating those genes would probably decrease those alleles in the population thereby affecting allele frequency in the population. If this happens regularly society would be a better place to live in as the undesirable traits will be present in very low frequencies.

3. Yes, I would favour the use of eugenics to decrease these alleles within the population as it would be a negative eugenic measure to reduce the undesirable traits in society. Because here the trait is mainly the anti-social behaviour, education and awareness can play a major role in helping people to develop a sense of belonging and proper social behaviour.