How is the above different than the situation for any parent or child?, DG asks.

The odds for a normal child are better than are those for a child who does not have all it faculties.

"The odds for a normal child are better than are those for a child who does not have all it faculties."

The odds a "normal child" will have a father dis early are better than for a child who is not "normal"?

When do you find out that your child isn't/will ot be "normal"? Surely that information comes out some time after conception, a point somewhat late to decide not to father a child. You are starting down a very slippery slope here, and a very steep one. I hope you know where to draw the line.

I have read your post several times, DG. I'll be damned if I know what you said, or wrote??? Can you explain ???

Babs said this:

Yeah, but who is at risk? It is not the father who will be at risk, but the child.

As Annie has already pointed out.

He will not always be around to take care of the child if it grows to be an adult unable to care for him/herself. That is when the child is at risk from all the cruelties that life can offer: loneliness, dependence on strangers, the inability to defend oneself from abouse from others, the inability to earn a living, the inability to understand one's predicament, the inability to communicate with others.

This is in response to Leppi, who said:

quote:
[the older men wanting to father children] realize that being parents involves risk, and they are willing to take that risk.....

Then I asked this:

How is the above different than the situation for any parent or child?

Babs' response to thaty was:

The odds for a normal child are better than are those for a child who does not have all it faculties.

My (typo corrected) response was:

The odds a "normal child" will have a father die early are better than for a child who is not "normal"?

I think babs has posited that the child will be born not "normal" and has then taken ther next step to say that the father isn't going to live as long as the father of a "normal" child. I don't think that either of her assumptions are valid, or even related. Further, in the rest of my last post,

When do you find out that your child isn't/will ot be "normal"? Surely that information comes out some time after conception, a point somewhat late to decide not to father a child. You are starting down a very slippery slope here, and a very steep one. I hope you know where to draw the line.

I ask when a parent finds out that his child will not be "normal"? Quite obviously, that information doesn't come out until after the decision to father a child has been made and successfully acted on.

Don't all parents wonder and worry about the health of their expected child? I find the idea that an older person shouldn't become a parent because there is a greater possibility that the child might not be "normal" (greater than a younger person) to be somewhat offensive.

Babs worries about the father of a not "normal" child not living long enough to care for the child. I wonder who gets to know how long they will live after fathering a child. I know I didn't get any notification after my son was conceived. I still haven't been notified as to how long I am going to live. If any father reading this did, please contact me. (I did know a guy in high school who was told that "If she's pregnant, you're dead", but that was by her father, so I don't think it counts.) What about occupations of the father (or mother)? Police and the military seem to have a higher than normal incidence of early death. Do we let them become parents? What about air traffic controllers? They also have a high suicide rate, and their health often is not as good as those without such a stressful job. Highway workers, electrical workers, and a few others seem to be in dangerous line of work. Should we allow them to reproduce? After all, they may "not always be around to take care of the child if it grows to be an adult unable to care for him/herself."

The slippery slope I refer to is the one in which society starts deciding who can be a parent. First, we eliminate men over 35, because their children have a higher than normal incidence of autism. What is next? People with any family history of heart disesse? Anyone with a crazy aunt or uncle? Studies show that short people make less money than tall people, so do we not allow anyone too short to mate? We could raise IQ scores in a couple of generations by not allowing people of IQs less than 110 to mate. Tnhink of the benefits! Want the US to do better in Olympic basketball? Make the new height minimum 6'. Why stop here? Require extremely intelligent people to mate! That, coupled with the prohibition of the < 110 IQs to mate, will really make an effect.*

Like I said, it's a steep slippery slope, and once you start down it, each step further down gets easier, and harder to stop. Just where do you draw the line. Of course, my examples are absurd, but please tell me - where is the line to be drawn?


*Wasn't something like this tried in Europe several decades ago? How did that turn out?

To my statement: "He will not always be around to take care of the child if it grows to be an adult unable to care for him/herself. That is when the child is at risk from all the cruelties that life can offer: loneliness, dependence on strangers, the inability to defend oneself from abouse from others, the inability to earn a living, the inability to understand one's predicament, the inability to communicate with others."

DG replied: ”How is the above different than the situation for any parent or child?”

And I replied:
"The odds for a normal child are better than are those for a child who does not have all it faculties."

Meaning, of course, that a normal child has more favorable odds in life in anything that he/she meets, than does a child that is less than normally gifted.

I do not understand DG’s next statement, or where it comes from:

quote:

The odds a "normal child" will have a father dis early are better than for a child who is not normal?

At any rate I’ll try to answer DG’s question,

quote:

” When do you find out that your child isn't/will ot be "normal"? Surely that information comes out some time after conception, a point somewhat late to decide not to father a child. You are starting down a very slippery slope here, and a very steep one. I hope you know where to draw the line.”

It is not up to me to draw the line. Parents can opt to abort. In democracies stronger measures such as eugenics become a group decision.

What's wrong with parents looking at the odds and making an authentic, responsible decision, such as birth control, if the odds against a normal child are not too favorable?

We run our lives based on such calculations. Those who do the calcs well generally have a 'good' life; those who don't, generally don't have a good life.

One of the comments often made about those who aren't doing too well in life is:

”He/she doesn’t seem able to foresee the consequences of his/her actions.”

For example, if a young person does not foresee that when he chooses to drive his car -- at 120 KPH with only six months’ driving experience under his belt and with eight beers in him |(to which he is unaccustomed|) and five other teens in the car egging him on to beat the train to the level crossing – his choice can lead to tragedy, we say he is somehow lacking. Yet some normal teens do this.

Still, the majority make the right choices, and survive to weep at the funerals of their friends.

But a child impaired from birth may never be able to go out in public without a companion because he cannot tell the difference between a red light and a green light, and cannot foresee that stepping in front of a speeding car will have a bad outcome.

Now, this may well be all right for a normal pre-schooler, who has a mother or nanny or daddy to teach and protect him. But when the parents age, they become dependent themselves, or they die. It is at this point that the child who has not his/her full capability will suffer. He/she will become a ward of the state, and probably be placed into a state hospital. Given the current tendency to incarcerate those who are not easily managed even if the disability is mental or emotional or perceptual, the child may well end up in prison. In any event, unless the parents are very wealthy, the child will be in the the daily care of low-paid strangers.

This is the fate that an ethical parent will want to avoid. To prevent pregnancy if the indications are not good is the humane, responsible thing to do.|

In case one were to point out that no pregnancy guarantees a normal child, I would think that no one should have a child without considering what could be done, save putting the child into care, if the child is born defective. But as the odds increase that the child will be defective, I think other options such as adoption should be considered.

DG flatly rejects any whiff of eugenics.

quote:

Like I said, it's a steep slippery slope, and once you start down it, each step further down gets easier, and harder to stop. Just where do you draw the line. Of course, my examples are absurd, but please tell me - where is the line to be drawn?
Wasn't something like this tried in Europe several decades ago? How did that turn out?

Eugenics, meaning growing human beings as we grow plants and animals, weeding out the ‘bad’ seed and improving the strain from the human point of view, has seldom been mentioned since the late 40’s of the last century without a knee-jerk response, a reference to the Nazi policies in Europe.

”This was tried once, ” the critics say, ”and see what happened! Many people who were innocent of any crime were neutered, and their god-given right to unlimited reproduction forever taken away.

”Then Nazi eugenics went even farther. People were executed for belonging to an ‘inferior’ ethnic group, or for being homosexual, or for just about any reason anyone in the top levels of the fascist dictatorship chose. That is the slippery slope that we must avoid at all costs.

”The corrolory: Never take any measure to improve the social practices of your society if that measure might lead to more measures and in the end to extreme measures.”

Accoring to this reasoning, democracy should never have been attempted in America, because the democratic ideals of the French Revolution led to a bloodbath and then to a dictatorship and finally back to the monarchic system the democracy was intended to replace.

And the democracy of ancient Greece was destroyed by the tyranny of the Macedonians.

According to this reasoning, slavery should never be abolished, because look at what abolition led to in the American South: a terrible war which cost the lives of 620,000 soldiers and the harrassment of the freed slaves for the next hundred years at the hands of the vengeful South.

According to the 'slippery slope' fallacy, you must not introduce penalties for undesirable actions in your community because next thing you know people will be given long prison sentences for dropping a paper cup in the street.

____________
Eugenics can be a 'good thing'. You could almost wipe out all severe hereditary diseases in North America in one generation if you offered every carrier of such a disease a brand new Ford Mustang if he/she would agree to a reversible sterilization procedure. And it would save billions in medical costs.

Mind you, the drug industry would kick like a steer, but that's another issue.

The odds against a disabled child are greater than are those a normal child must confront in most situations. That's why we call them disabled. The odds against their father dying while they are still young are greater when the father is already of advanced years. If the likelihood of a child being disabled in some way when the father is past a certain age, and the father's life expectancy is an unavoidable added risk, the child, it seems to me, is at additional risk. If the father is a caring, responsible adult, it behooves him to consider alternatives to producing biological replicas of himself. IMHO.

I, personally, intend to forego producing any future offspring.

quote:

if you offered every carrier of such a disease a brand new Ford Mustang if he/she would agree to a reversible sterilization procedure.

Why "reversible" ? Doesn't that defeat the purpose when dealing with egotists like, frinstance, The Donald.?

See, Frank, to understand my thinking, you have to remember I'm Canajun. We don't always think as Americans do.

In another post, on shooting people, we see how the mere fact of having to find your trigger-guard key, unlock your gun, find your ammunition cabinet key, and then take gun and key to the ammunition cabinet and then unlock your ammunition, results in many Canadians just saying, "Oh fiddle, I'll just call the cops instead, then hide in a closet till they come."

Similarly, if one, as the result of a youthful impulse to have a new car, will agree to a reversible procedure, then the advantages soon become apparent. Much less paranoia in your dating circle. In fact, you soon find yourself very popular, indeed, because everyone hates condoms - and the expense of condoms. (Especially junkies. They hate the expense of everything -- except junk.)

So now your life is getting better and better. New car; scar (certificate, even) you can show anyone. Life is sweet.

Now here's the beauty of the plan. The reversal is not covered under the medical plan! So you have to save up for it.

So if you can hold a thought in your mind long enough to form a goal (have a baby) and long enough to save up for the fixit surgery, and manage to actually show up for your surgery appointment, you are already smarter than half the people who inadvertently conceive today. So already we would be well on the way to a better gene pool. And lower taxes. And wouldn't it be wrong of us to deny the underemployed the same right to a new car?

And so on.

I noted in the study first linked to in this thread (or the other thread about later fatherhood) that the conclusions were based on 678 cases. Am I ther only one who sees that as too small a sample to make a decision about practicing eugenics?

In response to my question about the location of the line that should be drawn, Babs says that parents will make that decision. Isn't that what is being done now? If so, why all the dialogue about what should be done? I read most of her posts as saying that we should do something about this. Who is we? Doesn't each parent (well, most of them) make their own decisions regarding this, and many other factors regarding becoming a parent? Why this seeming rush to make this a group decision? Who forms the group? I am certain that David Dukes has a different idea about eugenics than does Louis Farrakhan.

New information comes out all the time regarding parenthood, chidbearing, and child-rearing. Some pay attention to it, and some don't. Rarely does a government get too involved other than to advise and intervention if the welfare of the child (not potential child) is past certain limits. What should be done about this new information about older fathers? Publicity, which should be given to all potentially important medical news. That's it. Deciding when I want to father a child is my decision, not any groups.

I'll wait for further evidence on the older fatherhood thing before it becomes a factor in my decision to become a parent again. But I may follow Frank, and forego fatherhood when I am in my 80s. Maybe.
********

I am reminded about a study that came out in the early 80s showing a link between large earlobes and heart disease. This was rather big news in the medical field. My wife (I was married then.) was an RN, and became very concerned because she said that my earlobes seemed large to her. I was, of course, amazed at the lack of knowledge of the medical "experts" who came up with discovery. I asked my wife if they had seen the link between heart disease and wrinkles, because it is even more pronounced than the earlobe link. There is also a definite link between the date of your birth certificate and death. Like I said, I'll wait for further news.

Dolores Malaspina, M.D., M.S.P.H. (Independent Investigator 2001) of New York State Psychiatric Institute,Long-term effects of delayed parenthood Check out the chart on effects of older fathers

The Age of the Father and the Health of Future Generations

The Father's Age as a Contributor to risk of autism in non-familial cases


The Clock Tics Both Ways

Some more sources on the issues around the male biological clock

Newborns At Risk For Special Education A Population Study

A brand new study from Finland showing that a major risk factor for needing Special Ed is having a father who was 40 or older at the child's birth...

Risk Factor for Special Education A Population Study

Paternal age of 40 and above is a major risk factor for a child needing special education.

My Biological Clock is Ticking

The Today Show March 13,2007 discusses the male biological clock and Dr Harry Fisch touches on the idea that the research on the connection between advancing paternal age and some autism and schizophrenia is the Tip of The Iceberg.

Video of the Today Show Segment

So much news in one or two weeks. No one come here any more but the topic is getting attention and on March 15th the study was published on the findings of many spontaneous mutations causing autism.De Novo Autism and Familial Autism are Different

Annie, I am sure people are reading the links you provide. They certainly make a good case for what you say.

Dear Dorian Greyed,

Thanks so much for your support. I really think this issue is akin to global warming in its importance. The data on cancers, diabetes 1,autism and schizoprenia etc. etc. are frightening.

The solution,if people knew the biology is kind of easy, with semen cryopreservation. If I presented a good enough case to have convinced you that there is a reason for concern, I feel better.

The effect of age on sperm DNA in health non-smokers

I just received notice of a relatively new scientific study concerning sperm DNA.

Also some bloggers have posted on paternal age.Old fathers sick children?

Paternal Age Schizophrenia, and Autismand just one more:Father's Age and Serious Mental Illness

quote:

I'll wait for further evidence on the older fatherhood thing before it becomes a factor in my decision to become a parent again. But I may follow Frank, and forego fatherhood when I am in my 80s. Maybe.

I see more and more autistic kids with young fathers (some teenage fathers) so there seem to be a risk with young fathers too.