TenForward: Where Every Vulcan Knows Your Name

Here is my take, assuming:

• We have the ability to remove all birth anomalies
• It is safe and effective, i.e. not an experimental technique
• It is not controversial, i.e. curing sickle cell is just the done thing\
• Scanning tech is much better than today

Situation 1:
Woman learns she is pregnant, say week 6. Gets a routine scan on the embryo. She discovers it has a genetic disorder. That will cause it to not be able to breathe well, running and playing will not be an option for your baby, they will survive; sweet no brainer there; splice in the fix doc. Correction is spliced in the next week, monitoring for rest of normal pregnancy.

Situation 2:
Woman learns she is pregnant, say week 6. Gets a routine scan on the embryo. Doctor says, looks like there is a genetic defect, the audio nerve is not going to develop normally, your baby will hear badly at birth, and then over the next two years will go permanently deaf. Implants could fix this issue after birth, and living as a deaf person is not difficult. However we can ensure that the nerve develops normally and your baby will have perfectly normal hearing.

In situation 1, the obvious answer is to fix the issue, having life long breathing difficulties that could easily be avoided would be cruel.
In situation 2, in my opinion it would also be cruel to impose on a kid; hey we could have fixed your hearing in a safe and effective way, but we decided for you before you were born that you would be "special".

I get where people are coming from, but they are looking at it with 2024 eyes, not 2424 eyes. Why would you impose on a kid, who has no say in the matter, a disability? Because that is the choice you are making, you are imposing a disability on a child that does not need to be there.

We currently give women folate, to protect against neural tube defects; along with a bunch of other interventions. We are already "interfering" with the "natural" progress of pregnancy and birth, we are only going to get better at it.

And also the conflating of eugenics and fixing birth defects is completely off base. These are only related by the fact that breeding is involved; they have nothing in common beyond that. In the same way that my kitchen knives would make great stabbing weapons, but cooking and stabbing only really have the tools in common.

I mean, in response to the last one, the Federation does allow (and sometimes advocates) for the correction of birth defects.

Julian: DNA resequencing for any reason other than repairing serious birth defects is illegal. Any genetically enhanced human being is barred from serving in Starfleet or practising medicine.

Deep Space Nine, "Doctor Bashir, I presume"

Doctor: Yes. It's a girl. And aside from the deviated spine, she's healthy.

Paris: Will she need surgery?

Doctor: Fortunately, we've advanced beyond that. Genetic modification is the treatment of choice.

Voyager, "Lineage"

So I imagine plenty of disabilities do end up being erased, it's just that being disabled is also socially accepted to a much greater extent than today.

This is a stupid take as well. There is also evidence that the federation does practice the correction of birth defects and disabilities when appropriate.

And why would they not? Allowing such impairments to exist when the medical technology to prevent it is available seems insanely unethical to me. Like breeding pugs because if people stopped doing that the breed would cease to exist, ignoring the fact that being a pug is a miserable existence for the animal.

I believe the most sensible policy for the federation (and us in real life) would be to correct any and all birth defects, disabilities and impairments wherever possible, while accommodating and fostering compassion and acceptance for the cases where it is not possible.

Disabled people are not lesser than anyone else and should have the same capacity to participate in society, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try everything to prevent people from being disabled.

My only problem with this is that Geordi made it clear more than once that not only would he rather just be able to see, but that his VISOR caused him constant pain. I wouldn't really call that accommodating for his blindness if that's what was required to get into Starfleet later.

And, of course, that was what made it so impactful when he finally had eyes that worked.

And then there was Melora on DS9. Starfleet could have done so many things to fulfill her dream of traveling the stars without having her be stuck in the chair in near-1g environments or accept Bashir's treatments. In fact, the only reason so few Elaysians ever left their homeworld was that everyone else was fine with 1g and no one gave a shit about their needs.

https://youtu.be/bqm_Iq8rFeg?t=16

"Surely by the 24th century, they would have found a cure for male pattern baldness." Gene Roddenberry had the perfect response.

"No, by the 24th century, no one will care."

"curing at birth" != "Eugenics"

Still, the spirit of accommodation is spot on.

The point about accomodation is the key here.

If being born without functioning legs isn't actually an impediment or challenge because society makes allowances for people without legs, then it's no longer a handicap!

If a blind person has options beyond merely having their sight "restored" to that of the baseline "normal", then they have options that might open up paths that regularly sighted people don't have, in which case their unique trait of being blind becomes an asset.

There's the secret to the utopia Star Trek positsv not that we try to "cute" everyone born different, but that we instead create opportunities for them to thrive as they are. In the future of Star Trek, the word "disability" is probably alien to them. Rather, they would describe someone in our time with such challenges as "disenfranchised" because we don't offer them opportunities.

I see names being mentioned and It’s problematic when someone assumes disabilities by armchair diagnosing characters with a disability and then defend it as if it were true.

“I assume normies would find this character annoying as they have some quirky, slight misunderstandings of personal boundaries so I’m going to attribute them with ‘being on the spectrum’”

Very few characters are ever seen wearing glasses.

Why the fuck is Julian mentioned here along with the actually differently abled characters? He was genetically enhanced as a youth because his parents thought he was a little slow.