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Selective breeding
15 years ago
Imagine a scenario. An alternate universe, if you will. A fanfiction of life as we know it. Perhaps it's the future, perhaps it's only a world where the people have adopted different morals. Perhaps in this world, science was allowed to progress unhindered by religion.
In this world, people love whomever they want to love. When they love someone enough, perhaps they choose to spend their lives with them. Perhaps after a bit of time like that, they decide that they want to have a family.
Now, since puberty, these people have been making donations. Once a month, at a local center. Donating what? Gametes. The females are timed to donate during their ovulation period, and the males are just scheduled for a monthly sperm donation.
Each person donates the same amount. Each person is evaluated on a full board of health, probably on a bi-annual basis or so. Cancer. Freckles. Allergies. Red Hair. Autistic. Short. If it's inheritable or even theorized to be so, it is recorded. These traits are combined into a score of fitness.
The gametes that each person has been donating are put into a giant lottery of sorts. Probably numbered vials in a freezer system. Not all gametes are put into the lottery equally, however. Imagine "slots," of a sort, just as I proposed with my pipey raffle. (See journal: "Idea for a new pipey")
Your score of fitness determines how many slots you are allotted into the lottery. You don't know your score, only your examiner and the computer does. When the lottery chooses you, your gametes are selected from amongst all of the other stored gametes. If you have a particularly low score of fitness, it's probably likely that you won't be selected very often, and your donations will start to pile up. After a certain point, the oldest samples will likely start to be discarded.
Anyway, the lottery is drawn whenever a child is wanted.
The person or persons who want the child will fill out an application for one. For nine months, they will attend a series of classes that will both evaluate their ability and educate/train them to be a good parent. When the nine months are up, they are certified to be a parent, and they are given a baby to raise and call their very own. This baby was grown artificially.
It is nearly impossible by all laws of probability that the baby will share any genetic material with the people raising it. But it will share their ideals, their heritage, their upbringing, their habits and traditions, and their fond memories together.
In this way, humanity is slowly but surely artificially selected for the highest health and most desirable traits. It is also successfully blended, leading to elimination of race and racial issues. It also makes sure that every child is wanted, leading to the elimination of a need for abortion.
Conceivable problem: Unless each person is neutered at puberty, instead of harvested, there could be illegitimate children. As in, children born naturally to parents without a parenting certification. These parents could be accidentally selecting for undesirable traits, or they could be uneducated as to how to raise a child, and could therefore be abusive or inadequate. Children conceived in this way may even be unwanted.
Idea: These children (upon discovery) could be offered for adoption to already-certified families if they choose to add another child. It would eliminate the 9-month waiting period, which is why the family must already have been certified with a first child.
TL;DR: Kids are born randomly, made from the prettiest and healthiest people. Their parents want them. Progress.
Thoughts?
In this world, people love whomever they want to love. When they love someone enough, perhaps they choose to spend their lives with them. Perhaps after a bit of time like that, they decide that they want to have a family.
Now, since puberty, these people have been making donations. Once a month, at a local center. Donating what? Gametes. The females are timed to donate during their ovulation period, and the males are just scheduled for a monthly sperm donation.
Each person donates the same amount. Each person is evaluated on a full board of health, probably on a bi-annual basis or so. Cancer. Freckles. Allergies. Red Hair. Autistic. Short. If it's inheritable or even theorized to be so, it is recorded. These traits are combined into a score of fitness.
The gametes that each person has been donating are put into a giant lottery of sorts. Probably numbered vials in a freezer system. Not all gametes are put into the lottery equally, however. Imagine "slots," of a sort, just as I proposed with my pipey raffle. (See journal: "Idea for a new pipey")
Your score of fitness determines how many slots you are allotted into the lottery. You don't know your score, only your examiner and the computer does. When the lottery chooses you, your gametes are selected from amongst all of the other stored gametes. If you have a particularly low score of fitness, it's probably likely that you won't be selected very often, and your donations will start to pile up. After a certain point, the oldest samples will likely start to be discarded.
Anyway, the lottery is drawn whenever a child is wanted.
The person or persons who want the child will fill out an application for one. For nine months, they will attend a series of classes that will both evaluate their ability and educate/train them to be a good parent. When the nine months are up, they are certified to be a parent, and they are given a baby to raise and call their very own. This baby was grown artificially.
It is nearly impossible by all laws of probability that the baby will share any genetic material with the people raising it. But it will share their ideals, their heritage, their upbringing, their habits and traditions, and their fond memories together.
In this way, humanity is slowly but surely artificially selected for the highest health and most desirable traits. It is also successfully blended, leading to elimination of race and racial issues. It also makes sure that every child is wanted, leading to the elimination of a need for abortion.
Conceivable problem: Unless each person is neutered at puberty, instead of harvested, there could be illegitimate children. As in, children born naturally to parents without a parenting certification. These parents could be accidentally selecting for undesirable traits, or they could be uneducated as to how to raise a child, and could therefore be abusive or inadequate. Children conceived in this way may even be unwanted.
Idea: These children (upon discovery) could be offered for adoption to already-certified families if they choose to add another child. It would eliminate the 9-month waiting period, which is why the family must already have been certified with a first child.
TL;DR: Kids are born randomly, made from the prettiest and healthiest people. Their parents want them. Progress.
Thoughts?
Speaking as a female who hates that one week a month, I'd just rather have my eggs removed and cryogenic-ally held for a situation like what you've got, and then just take the rest of my female-plumbing out.
but not my thing :P
Speaking as a scientific atheist, first I have to take issue with the hypothesis that this scenario is enacted in a world where science is unfettered by religion; religion has and does act as a scientific retardant, but science is its own moderator, and does not need the hand of religion to keep it from getting out of control.
Now, on to the meat of the problem: I find this scenario to be both disturbing and highly unlikely. There is so much more to genetics, and epigenetics, that we don't understand that I don't think we could accurately choose which traits to pass on, and in the sense of breeding a better human it will likely be a complete failure.
More over, some of the benefits this scenario provides (each child being wanted and loved) could probably be achieved with universal access to birth control and reliable sex-positive education. Though the artificial system is similar to what gay and lesbian couples have to go through to get a child (i.e. a conscious choice), I think it should be part of a heterosexual's jobs to be responsible for their reproductivity.
Finally, the amount of control this gives to whoever is in charge of this baby lottery system is unacceptable, and the whole thing smacks of individual rights infringement. As a human being, I demand the right to free speech, the right to live, the right to die, and the right to reproduce. If I have to apply to any agency or institution to do any of those things… well, either I'm in a George Orwell novel, or I'm taking my assault rifle and going home.
I think the ideals set forth here are good and noble; the melting pot of genetics, the responsibility as parents; but they are already things we recognize as desirable and are what the majority of us are working toward. It may seem at times that we need outside help, but we don't—and we're better off doing it for ourselves.
TL;DR: Scientifically unfeasible, theoretically desirable, but fundamentally flawed and conducive to distopian environment.
Hope they're helpful.
But sex is so much fun ^.^
and it's something primal and euphoric about bareing childeren. I personally would not want kids as I feel I would not be able to fund and raise them into a good life, but that's aside the topic at hand.
My point is, adoption is a good option, but giving birth is something that every mammal (with some exceptions) goes through. And so, I feel, birthing and bareing a child is very special.