Conference taveng::bagels

    Do you mean that because I pick a name out of the phone book and
    you refuse to have sex with that stranger and so no baby is born
    out of you and this person, that you are in fact a murderer?
    Your refusal to have sex with that person means that a child
    that would otherwise have come into this world, will not.
    Are you really saying that your refusal to have sex with this stranger
    is morally equivalent to killing an already-existing person?
    
    If A and B have sex together, a baby will ensue.  A or B decides
    not to have sex with the other.  By your standards, the refuser
    is guilty of a crime, because the baby that would have ensued
    was never conceived and born.
    
    Now if A and B had sex and a baby was born and then either A or
    B killed it, more people would agree that that is murder.
    
    But, of course, you are correct in that the consequences are the
    same.  A refusal to have sex produces the same results as an
    abortion or infanticide:  The child is not to be.
    
    Weird stuff.
    
    
    

    I don't read the base note the same as .1.
    I thought what what being said was that it was scary if a "passive"
    decision on an individuals part were to become "active".
    This active decision could be either the individual deciding what
    characteristics his/her offspring should have or even more ominous
    if the STATE should get involved.

    In my reply in .2 I reversed the usage of "active" and "passive"
    as the base note used them, and I added the part about the STATE
    on my own.

    1.) I'm dead serious with my request, and did not enter this note
    for just the sake of it.
    
    2.) Although it infringes, today, on abortion issues, I'd like to
    keep them out of this discussion.
    
    3.) The ethical and legal implications to this problem are so complex
    that I would appreciate any clarifying view.
    
    Having said this, let's shortly review what is PRACTICE today, what is
    being researched in several US, Soviet and European (EUGENOM) projects,
    and what this might result into pretty soon.
    
    TODAY's practice: A medical test has been developed which allows to
    determine whether the checked f�tus suffers from specific
    malformations. As a side effect, the test also allows to determine the
    sex of this f�tus. In many countries, the sex analysis decides over
    death or life (abortion or not) of the tested f�tus. An unwanted
    result, and, to me, has a bitter connotation of so-believed forgotten
    'unworthy life' slogans.
    
    TODAY's research: analyse genes of a f�tus to determine his future
    'sanity' biography (SIC).
    
    TOMORROW's applications: abort specific f�ti with probable multiple
    future ('smaller' or 'bigger') diseases. This would mean, for instance,
    that I would never have been born, nor would my children have been,
    since my grandfather suffered from cancer for 10 years and my
    grandmother had heart diseases and diabetes for almost all of her life.
    And who knows what waits for me.
    
    WORST, yet not impossible scenario: gene-technology based 'eugenics',
    state imposed or not, e.g., breed humans of a specific 'fashion',
    only.
    
    Well, to wrap it up in a very subjective manner: what would the
    Nazis and their white coat helpers � la Mengele have done, had they
    had these 'instruments'? What will their successors, under different
    names, in other countries, do? But this is already anticipating
    doubtful results, based on emotional deduction.
    
    More basically, my question is: what is the ethical judgment? What
    moral rules apply? When is life 'unworthy'?
    
    Searchingly yours,
    
    Chris   

    Chris,
    	Please do not slant the discussion here with what appears to
    be a very Roman Catholic-oriented view!  F�ti are not living people
    under Jewish law, they are part of their mothers' bodies.
    
    	Eugenics is a scary matter.  There are complex moral and ethical
    issues around gene-splicing.  But the issue of genetic engineering
    is very, very different from abortion.  They are not connected here.
    They have nothing to do with Auschwitz, either, and I find the title
    of this topic rather offensive!

    Hmmm... Your first paragraph already helps me a lot, really!.
    
    I explicitly stated that abortion is not the issue, here. Personal
    statement: I'm not what could be called a fervent Roman-Catholic.
    Rather the opposite. Your comment triggered a valid pointer to a
    cultural bias, though. I'll think it over.
    
>   There are complex moral and ethical issues...
    
    EXACTLY! I'm currently in sort of a labyrinth, with my simple mind
    trying to compare the "pro's and con's", if I may simplify the issue.
    Believe me: I MEAN it when I ask to know what the Jewish law has to
    say. Most of the sources I encountered up so far give answers which are
    far from being satisfactory .
    
    As for the title, which you feel is offensive, it wasn't meant to be.
    
    Apologisingly yours,
    
    Chris

Re:  .5, .6:

We're agreed that there are complex moral and ethical issues in bioengineering
and eugenics.  But are they _Jewish_ issues?  To me, not specifically.

There is a corpus of Jewish law on abortion.  In general, abortion is
discouraged.  But a fetus is not regarded as a person until birth, and
the mother's well-being takes precedence.

With regard to halachic questions on modern medical ethics, there are a few 
authorities focusing in this area, but it's not in the mainstream yet.

In any case, the title "Scientific Auschwitz" is rather inflammatory, and I
see nothing about the current developments in bioengineering that should
raise alarms from a Jewish point of view.