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

[Enterprise1981]

^ "Unnatural Selection" and "Up the Long Ladder" are tough to figure. Nothing else Trek lore would seem to suggest the Federation would ever condone abortion or euthanasia. (See "The Masterpiece Society" [TNG] and "The Quickening" [DS9])

 

[Timo]

The Bajorans are the ones who are advanced here, not the Federation

To the contrary, the Bajorans have "current" morals on the issue, nothing new there; the Feds have "advanced" ones in the sense that they are futuristic. We today may find them appalling; our forefathers might similarly throw up at hearing what we're up to. "Advanced" never means "more to our liking" in practice; at most, we adapt our liking to match the advances.

The Federation deals with more varieties of life than we have today. Has it chosen to ignore the differences and go for "lump morals"? Apparently not - apparently, there's advantage to treating clones and genetically modified people differently from the rest of the lot, with various finesses.

"Unnatural Selection" and "Up the Long Ladder" are tough to figure. Nothing else Trek lore would seem to suggest the Federation would ever condone abortion or euthanasia. (See "The Masterpiece Society" [TNG] and "The Quickening" [DS9])

The difference might lie in the obvious technicality: in these early TNG episodes, the controversial lifeforms were Augments or Clones, potentially lower-class citizens by their very nature, whereas the discussion in "Masterpiece Society" was on judging the worth of the "naturally" born. It would only stand to reason that a society that preaches that genetic fiddling is bad would also preach that it's okay to be born blind or without feet.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

Nothing else Trek lore would seem to suggest the Federation would ever condone abortion or euthanasia

But would the Federation out-law either? Worf (in The Child) advocated the death of Deanna's child by abortion, interestingly his suggestion seemed to be aimed at Picard and the senior staff and not specifically to Deanna. Worf also (and Klingons in general) believes in euthanasia, there is apparently no Federation law, or Starfleet regulation, forbidding it.

Given the plethora of Federation members and cultures, the Federation might have no governmental/legal position on either of these issues.

It would only stand to reason that a society that preaches that genetic fiddling is bad would also preach that it's okay to be born blind or without feet.

The Masterpiece Society and the Romulans (The Enemy) seem to have the same negative position on a society allowing disabled children to live. LaForge had similar discussions in both episodes, the Romulan felt that Geordi's parents should have ended his life by infanticide, while the Masterpiece Society culture would have required the ending of Geordi's life by abortion as soon as the defect with his vision became obvious

LaForge: Who gave them the right to decide whether or not I should be here? Whether or not I might have something to contribute?