"My guess is that Siddiqui’s superbabies (bless them) will find themselves just as plagued by the travails of life as any other child." - Correct, which undermines the central argument of the piece.
If all people face challenges, including challenges that strengthen them, and bring opportunities for joy and virtue to their community, then removing one specific challenge (an identifiable disease) will not adversely affect that person's or their community's ability to embody "what it means to be a successful or thriving human being".
The author does not posit, though perhaps he should boldly do so, that people with a genetic predisposition to greater disease and disability are more moral or have more meaningful lives. That would be an interesting position, and would be an effective riposte to Orchid's offering. Indeed, it would then logically follow that we should genetically screen for and actively promote such greater disease propensities. That of course is a position the author would not take.
That leaves us in the unremarkable position of just saying that the current (arbitrary) genetic predisposition to disease is correct and should not be tampered with. That kind of defense of the status quo is fairly uncontroversial, but not without its own problems, as it opens us to questions of what other status quo circumstances we should not tamper with.
Should we not undertake any medicine or technology, or improve our nutrition, or even participate in any activism or philosophical argument, because each of these alter our received status quo and materially change our life outcomes, our struggles, our opportunities for joy though sacrifice? That is also clearly not a position the author would take. Hence, we are left wondering what differentiates Orchid's particular intervention from all the other interventions the author presumably supports.
The cynical answer would be that the author objects to the destruction of embryos through IVF technology, but does not see that as a winning argument, so builds a facade about joy through sacrifice. Less cynically, we could just say that the author needs to re-work this position with more rigor, to better identify what makes this practice meaningfully different from all of the other life-saving and life-easing interventions we have embraced over the last 500 years. Focusing on the despicable history of eugenics and the hubris of man is certainly a good start, but it's not a complete argument.
As an aside, the charge of ableism is accurate. But this is also not as powerful as the author might hope. Is it ableist to set a bone correctly in order to prevent future disability? Yes. Is it ableist to reduce an infant's fever to prevent deafness? Yes. Is it ableist to properly care for a serious burn to preserve function in the limb? Yes, all ableist, and all welcome and uncontroversial practices.
"My guess is that Siddiqui’s superbabies (bless them) will find themselves just as plagued by the travails of life as any other child." - Correct, which undermines the central argument of the piece.
If all people face challenges, including challenges that strengthen them, and bring opportunities for joy and virtue to their community, then removing one specific challenge (an identifiable disease) will not adversely affect that person's or their community's ability to embody "what it means to be a successful or thriving human being".
The author does not posit, though perhaps he should boldly do so, that people with a genetic predisposition to greater disease and disability are more moral or have more meaningful lives. That would be an interesting position, and would be an effective riposte to Orchid's offering. Indeed, it would then logically follow that we should genetically screen for and actively promote such greater disease propensities. That of course is a position the author would not take.
That leaves us in the unremarkable position of just saying that the current (arbitrary) genetic predisposition to disease is correct and should not be tampered with. That kind of defense of the status quo is fairly uncontroversial, but not without its own problems, as it opens us to questions of what other status quo circumstances we should not tamper with.
Should we not undertake any medicine or technology, or improve our nutrition, or even participate in any activism or philosophical argument, because each of these alter our received status quo and materially change our life outcomes, our struggles, our opportunities for joy though sacrifice? That is also clearly not a position the author would take. Hence, we are left wondering what differentiates Orchid's particular intervention from all the other interventions the author presumably supports.
The cynical answer would be that the author objects to the destruction of embryos through IVF technology, but does not see that as a winning argument, so builds a facade about joy through sacrifice. Less cynically, we could just say that the author needs to re-work this position with more rigor, to better identify what makes this practice meaningfully different from all of the other life-saving and life-easing interventions we have embraced over the last 500 years. Focusing on the despicable history of eugenics and the hubris of man is certainly a good start, but it's not a complete argument.
As an aside, the charge of ableism is accurate. But this is also not as powerful as the author might hope. Is it ableist to set a bone correctly in order to prevent future disability? Yes. Is it ableist to reduce an infant's fever to prevent deafness? Yes. Is it ableist to properly care for a serious burn to preserve function in the limb? Yes, all ableist, and all welcome and uncontroversial practices.