Posted by klausen on September 11, 2002 at 03:01:59:
In Reply to: Type-1 diabetics having children posted by klausen on September 10, 2002 at 08:26:44:
My post seems to have sparked a lot of comment, as well as some misunderstanding. First, although some cases of type 1 diabetes appear out of nowhere in families with no history of the disease and may represent spontaneous genetic mutations, it is still true that if all those with a clear risk of passing on the disease were to refrain from having children, the number of new diabetics would dwindle significantly, generation after generation, until the number of new diabetics would be very small. The opposite has been happening since the discovery of insulin allowed diabetics to survive to child-bearing age, and much of the current rise in diabetes can be traced to type 1 diabetics reproducing, for the first time in world history, beginning in the 1920s.
Second, since the rate of type 1 diabetes in the general population is one in 2000, the fact that children of type 1 diabetics have a one in 40 chance still looks small on an individual basis, but measured over the entire population it is significant. It should be noted that the chance of two type 1 diabetics producing diabetic children is one in 4.
Third, I am surprized that people are so upset when genetic planning is applied to diabetes, since people with other partially or wholly genetically transmitted diseases, like Huntington's Disease, are routinely counselled not to have children, and no one objects. What is the point of genetic counselling, of amniocentesis, of women not having children later in life for fear of producing children with Down's Syndrome, if all of this is ethically unacceptable eugenics? Many couples decide to abort a fetus if it is found to have Down's Syndrome, yet medical ethicists do not consider this illegitimate.
Fourth, of course every life is sacred once it exists, and all people, however disabled they are, can make a valuable contribution, but why not reduce the misery in the world by not bringing new people into it with a high risk of illness, given that their place will be taken with others who are more likely to be happy and healthy, and who could make just as valuable a contribution to humanity?
Finally, someone mentioned that the misery of having a diabetic child may be less than the misery of a life unfulfilled because it lacks children, but it would be selfish to judge the issue by our happiness. On the contrary, morality calls upon us to guide our behavior by the happiness of others, especially of our own potential children.