We did prenatal tests to ensure that the IVF process we went through actually prevented our CF-genes from combining and causing the fetus to have CF. Also we knew very early there was no Down syndrome.

Unlike eugenics, where otherwise perfectly normal humans would have been born, this use case is focused on negative traits that would have resulted in a lifelong tragedy for everyone involved.

> Unlike eugenics, where otherwise perfectly normal humans would have been born, this use case is focused on negative traits that would have resulted in a lifelong tragedy for everyone involved.

If the intention was to abort a genetically undesirable pregnancy, then that is literally textbook eugenics.

You're not wrong, that is the dictionary definition of eugenics. However painting "aborting a fetus with CF" and "sterilizing the 'undesirable' races" as equivalent is a pretty massive leap in my opinion.

There's historic context to eugenics and a nexus with racism, nationalism, fascism, and physiognomy that makes it a harmful ideology.

I don't think those factors are present in the case where people doing the eugenics are the parents and the phenotype being selected against is dying a slow, painful death in the absence of lifelong exotic drug therapy.

There are really good questions about where to draw the line here though. What if it's type-1 diabetes?

> However painting "aborting a fetus with CF" and "sterilizing the 'undesirable' races" as equivalent is a pretty massive leap in my opinion.

I didn’t make that leap. I was just saying that this is eugenics, because that seems like a factually accurate description to me.

I would agree that not all eugenic systems are created equal, and that while you could debate whether aborting a child with a hereditary condition might be a bad thing to do, it’s at least not bad for all the same reasons as sterilizing populations to achieve some sort of racial purity would be.

I’ve never been confronted with these sorts of decisions, so I can’t be entirely certain how I’d react. But this seems like an important topic to debate as these technologies mature. However one way I can imagine that debate being undermined is if the people developing and advocating for this technology were to succeed in reframing it as somehow being not-eugenics, which to me it seems as though it clearly is. While it might be far less problematic than the Nazi eugenics programs, it’s not clear to me how you could put this technology to use without eventually creating some sort of Gattaca-like situation, which is also deeply problematic, just for different reasons.

it also gets into pretty uncomfy territory when you consider hereditary diseases that have a 40-60% percent curable rate in 5 years and most likely 90% rate in 10. Do you still abort under such circumstances?

Sure, if you want to define eugenics strictly in terms of selecting for features, but I think there's a difference between "selecting for A" vs "selecting for !B", with the latter not limiting the existence of A, C, D, etc. On paper these might seem equivalent, but when applied by a society it becomes the difference between "let's breed blond haired blue eyes people" vs "let's not have kids with Down syndrome" and I think "eugenics" has been primarily used to describe the former application.

You’re still choosing who gets to live based on their immutable characteristics. Which I would say is still bad, but not for entirely the same reasons as the Nazi program was.

And as I mentioned in another response, if this technology eventually becomes very sophisticated, how do you prevent some sort of gattaca-like situation emerging?

You’re still discriminating upon who gets to live, and “at least it’s not racist” doesn’t seem like a particularly compelling defence of that idea to me. It also doesn’t impact the myriad of other potential downstream issues.