Does 24th century humanity have "Eugenics War Tourette's"?

[Enterprise1981]

The expression is inspired by the Lewis Black bit where he says Glenn Beck has "Nazi Tourette's".

One can understand placing serious limits on genetic engineering of humans. It definitely would still be as controversial as cloning humans is today. Humanity appears to be a little less paranoid about genetic resequencing than in the 22nd century based on Arik Soong's claim that research into genetic engineering on humans could have saved Henry Archer's life. But of course, in Julian Bashir's two centuries later, "DNA resequencing for any reason other than repairing serious birth defects is illegal."

On the other hand, barring those whose parents/guardians circumvented the law might seem a little excessive. It's a form of discrimination that shouldn't have any place in the "enlightened 24th century." Though, Worf's statement that if such people were allowed to compete in "normal society", then others would feel pressured to keep up does have merit like with so-called "Performance Enhancing Drugs" in competitive teams sports.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I've also noticed that the Feds seem to have a real hangup about genetic engineering, which is odd considering how blase they are about pretty much everything else. Wormhole aliens who style themselves as gods, sentient androids, inter-species breeding, nothing fazes them, except genetic engineering!!! OMGWTFUSDABBQ!!!!

All I can figure is that the Eugenics War was very very very traumatic for them.

 

[Flashover]

Maybe there were additional incidents post 22nd century that resulted in the current (24th century) attitude twords Genetic Engineering.

 

[T'Girl]

I think the prohibition applies to Humans and not all the Federation races in general. So maybe not a Fed law, but a Human/Earth one.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

It should be illegal except for a) repairing birth defects and b) helping interspecies couples to have healthy children. Only truly necessary-for-survival modifications should be allowed.

And I suspect that where it is done, that genetic information used to make the repair is taken from that person's own family. For instance, if the mother, father, or a sibling has the proper coding that can be used to replace the defective gene, then they would end up being the donor. This absolutely removes the chance of creating a combination that wouldn't have had the chance to occur in nature between the mother and father, as well as any ethical problems with introducing outside material unless absolutely necessary for survival (i.e. the immediate family was killed or abandoned the baby and therefore cannot be reached).

 

[Myasishchev]

On the actual video of that segment, what's the crazy person's blackboard in the background? Something about "TIDES." I think this proves what we've all suspected: Glenn Beck is, in fact, the Ocean Master. This is great, because Aquaman will deal with him and we won't have to.

Maybe there were additional incidents post 22nd century that resulted in the current (24th century) attitude twords Genetic Engineering.

Well, there was that one time those kids' genetically engineered immune systems ate people. I guess that's some reason for caution, although how you accidentally create airborne flesh-eating phagocyte is a little bit beyond me.

It should be illegal except for a) repairing birth defects and b) helping interspecies couples to have healthy children. Only truly necessary-for-survival modifications should be allowed.

Why?

 

[FormerLurker]

Maybe there were additional incidents post 22nd century that resulted in the current (24th century) attitude twords Genetic Engineering.

It may still be 22nd century, but the whole Augment sequence with Arik Soong is probably on the list somewhere.

 

[FormerLurker]

I think the prohibition applies to Humans and not all the Federation races in general. So maybe not a Fed law, but a Human/Earth one.

This is a possibility.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Myasishchev--I believe that refers to the Tides Foundation, which I think George Soros has made major contributions to.

As to why genetic contributions should have to come from one's own family--it's to prevent a genetic "arms race," so to speak, which is the same thing that the Eugenics War and the Augment virus were about. Passing the best genes to your children would still have to rely on the good old fashioned method of winning the affection of the best man or woman. (And of course there are already laws in place about doing that the wrong way.)

 

[Timo]

On the other hand, barring those whose parents/guardians circumvented the law might seem a little excessive.

I don't understand this bit. The whole ban on genetic engineering is because it is felt the results are dangerous to the universe. It's not a matter of slapping the wrists of wrongdoers so that they don't do it again: the genetically engineered individual will be "doing it again" till his or her death, completely regardless of who's to blame for the engineering.

Elsewhere, the Federation doesn't seem to believe in punishment as a means of preventing crime - save for two cases of death penalty in TOS (for supposedly civilization-endangering offenses) and one fine in DS9 (to Quark, a non-citizen). Instead of being deterred by punishment, the wrongdoer is cured of the desire to repeat his or her crime by some sort of medical means, and apparently highly effectively so. That Richard Bashir was given a jail term of years instead of a couple of months of therapy was an interesting and perhaps rare compromise when the damage was already done and the chances of Richard returning to his path of crime were zero anyway. That shouldn't alter one iota the fact that Bashir was now a potentially dangerous individual, though.

And since the danger in Bashir's nature lay in his supposedly built-in excess ambition and the potential for misusing his skills, curtailing that ambition by blocking career paths seems like an effective countermeasure. Not a punishment for deeds done, but a precautionary measure akin to telling a blind man he can't drive (today, that is - LaForge would beg to differ in the 24th century!).

Other Augments in DS9 were shown institutionalized, but again not for punitive purposes. Instead, they were deemed incapable of coping with freedom, and demonstrated traits that suggested this was a correct diagnosis...

OTOH, Augments in TNG "Unnatural Selection" were shown being created by the government under supposedly controlled conditions. The key here would appear to be control: Augments are a major risk if uncontrolled, but they are not irrationally feared abominations in general and can exist, can be created, and can conduct their lives if suitably controlled.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Enterprise1981]

Not a punishment for deeds done, but a precautionary measure akin to telling a blind man he can't drive.

That's just universal common sense, not a reaction to a dark chapter in one particular group of people's history. Unlike in the Babylon 5 universe, telepathic species in the Trek universe are not excluded from having the same opportunities as everybody else. Doing the same with augments, even under the guise of deterring criminal behavior, would be punishing individuals for crimes not yet committed, which likely goes against the UFP's philosophy on deterring criminal behavior.

Other Augments in DS9 were shown institutionalized, but again not for punitive purposes. Instead, they were deemed incapable of coping with freedom, and demonstrated traits that suggested this was a correct diagnosis...

In that situation, they were judged mentally unstable and were institutionalized just like any "basic" judged too mentally unstable to function in normal society.

OTOH, Augments in TNG "Unnatural Selection" were shown being created by the government under supposedly controlled conditions. The key here would appear to be control: Augments are a major risk if uncontrolled, but they are not irrationally feared abominations in general and can exist, can be created, and can conduct their lives if suitably controlled.

Hmmm, everything about that scenario flies in the face what's illegal in the Federation-- not just genetic alterations of humans, but also of using living beings as subjects of scientific research. Like I said when said when starting this thread, it's just as controversial as the issue of cloning a human being is in the present day.

 

[Timo]

That's just universal common sense, not a reaction to a dark chapter in one particular group of people's history.

So let's say a guy with a VD shouldn't have unprotected sex. That's a relatively new view on things, and it's both "universal common sense" and "a reaction to a dark chapter in one particular group of people's history". It's a sensible reaction, is all.

Mankind apparently had several decades to learn that an Augment without criminally harmful ambition just plain couldn't exist, or at least such things were as rare as AIDS carriers who don't pass the disease on. For all we know, Bashir really is a monster deep down - or then represents such a small fraction of the monstrous whole that the society's view on him is statistically correct.

..punishing individuals for crimes not yet committed, which likely goes against the UFP's philosophy on deterring criminal behavior.

Or then not. In "Justice", Picard says that "we have learned to detect the seeds of criminal behaviour", apparently offering this as an explanation as to why there is no need for punishment as a means of stopping crime in the Federation. Something preemptive is going on there, although we don't know what. Aborting of potential criminals before birth? Preemptive counseling? Sending a personal crime preventer (a person or a device) to tag along every potential criminal?

Hmmm, everything about that scenario flies in the face what's illegal in the Federation-- not just genetic alterations of humans, but also of using living beings as subjects of scientific research.

Since when would research on living beings have been no-no in the UFP? McCoy and Crusher practiced experimental medicine on their patients all the time, saving them from novel kinds of grisly fate. Research that is known to benefit the patient might be a big yes-yes in the UFP instead.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Python Trek]

I still don't get how the operation that the scientists in "Unnatural Selection" were running was legal. Just because it was "controlled"? What would the fate of those super-kids have been, had their dangerous immune systems not been discovered? Would they _still_ have been confined to laboratories for the rest of their lives? Sounds an awful lot like slavery.

 

[Timo]

They weren't supposed to have dangerous immune systems; the researchers were distraught at this happening. Supposedly, these folks would have entered the society eventually, although possibly with limitations such as those safeguarding Bashir.

The other possibility is that the test subjects would have been killed. Apparently, the 24th century has advanced morals about the definition and treatment of artificially created life, and it is not objectionable to kill one's illegally made clone. At least not if one is a Starfleet officer and the clone was made on a non-Federation world. If you happen to be a Bajoran civilian and make the clone yourself on a Bajoran space station, you burn for murder. Go figure.

In any case, while death is not used as a penalty in the UFP, it's dealt out rather liberally by Starfleet for other purposes. There's no "thou shalt not kill" clause to a Starfleet contract, or to Data's programming, or to whatever religion these guys, gals and assorteds are practicing.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Satyrquaze]

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here, strickly looking at the timeline, it wasn't declared that 'recreational genetic engineering' was illegal continuity-wise until "Doctor Bashir I Presume", quite late in Trek-lore. So I highly doubt that it was the same issue that Picard was talking about in "Justice".

 

[T'Girl]

Good point, Star Trek exists over the course of three and a half centuries when it comes to the subject of genetics, just because something is illegal during DS9's time period doesn't mean that the same "offense" was illegal even a few years or decades before.

 

[Satyrquaze]

I think I should have said 'chronologically' in reference to "Doctor Bashir I Presume".

Well, it's presumably illegal when Arik Soong's Augments rape and pillage the beta quadrant during ENT. But, when Picard even brings up Khan Signh in "A Matter of Time" he doesn't go off a eloquent speech on the dangers of genetic engineering as should anyone invoking his name anytime after the Genesis Device debacle.

I really don't think the writers had really decided that genetic engineering was illegal in Federation at that point yet.

 

[Enterprise1981]

McCoy and Crusher practiced experimental medicine on their patients all the time, saving them from novel kinds of grisly fate.

As long as they were within certain legal limits where the patient has given his or her informed consent, such as Worf consenting to the genotronic replication. Such experimentation is not taken to the extremes of those in Nazi concentration camps.

Bringing me to my next point. Nazi Germany was a political entity that practiced social Darwinism. We know now that preventing criminal behavior is not as simple as saying this person is genetically predisposed towards criminal behavior so we must permanently segregate him or her from the rest of society. Whatever this system "detecting the roots of criminal behavior" is based on a philosophy of rehabilitation and reintegration. Any segregation from the rest of the population is only temporary.

 

[T'Girl]

As long as they were within certain legal limits where the patient has given his or her informed consent, such as Worf consenting to the genotronic replication.

and it is not objectionable to kill one's illegally made clone. At least not if one is a Starfleet officer and the clone was made on a non-Federation world.

Riker of course made no effort to obtain informed consent prior to killing off two unconscious adult clones. While one of the clones was a result of the thief of Riker's genetic information, the clone was in no way "his." Arguably a individual who is a clone is legally a artificial lifeform and therefor possesses different legal rights in the eyes of the Federation/Starfleet, or possibly none at all.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

The other possibility is that the test subjects would have been killed. Apparently, the 24th century has advanced morals about the definition and treatment of artificially created life, and it is not objectionable to kill one's illegally made clone. At least not if one is a Starfleet officer and the clone was made on a non-Federation world. If you happen to be a Bajoran civilian and make the clone yourself on a Bajoran space station, you burn for murder. Go figure.

The Bajorans are the ones who are advanced here, not the Federation--at least THEY recognize the value of life with its own soul that is taken against its will (as opposed to a life taken because of a choice that individual made that brought that sentence). Killing a clone--killing an identical twin...no difference whatsoever.