DP. It doesn’t look like this is at that stage yet. There’s probably a lot of genetic anomalies that are identifiable whose import is still unknown. |
There are companies doing this now. I think it will be more mainstream in the coming decades as the science improves. I think people like Elon Musk are using it to choose embryos with the best genetic health. For example, if you have 8 possible embryos, on average the one with the greatest predicted future health will live years longer than the one with the least. We could really reduce the number of children with major health and developmental disorders if we allowed families who had some genetic risk to pre-select the healthiest embryos. Hopefully this is a possibility in the decades to come. |
I don’t think that even with private companies there are doing this with respect to autism. |
Most autism isn't caused by an identifiable gene or cluster of genes. |
I hope that we can give parents tools to avoid fetuses with anomalies incompatible with life, but otherwise I don't want to live in a world with designer perfect babies, or where only the poor have kids with disabilities. |
My 24 yo DD is ASD level 1, has ADHD, and plans to see a geneticist to (hopefully) identify if she has EDS and if she does what sub-type. Her rheumatologist gave her a verbal dx based on her hypermobility, chronic pain, falls, bruising, and fatigue. She went to a cardiologist who did not think she has POTS. Her symptoms of EDS have worsened as she has gotten older, and I worry about her mobility and QOL in the future. She's smart, excelled in college, and has job she enjoys. But at the end of the day she is absolutely exhausted and falls asleep by 7. She lives at home, pays rent, and I am 100% supportive of her advocating for a correct dx and proper treatment. It's really hard to see my beautiful, smart, kind, funny dd suffer, and not be physically able to do the things she wants to do. |