No, that is what I contend: a better genotype makes no sense because there is no such thing as a "better" person from the physical standpoint. That is what I contend and that is why I take the natural conclusion: if you can "choose" between people based on their genotype, then you are treating them as 'things', not as 'people'.

Which is what leads to eugenics, for example, with people with Down syndrome. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21555947).

"It is worse than irrelevant," I do not know why: I assumed the Parent was against eugenics, that is why I tried to make him realize it.

My personal moral opinion is that it would be extremely good if there was some way to make the kids/embryos with Down syndrome be cured, preferably before birth (because earlier in development there are less irreversible changes).

And if we had such a cure (as far as I know, we currently don't and won't for quite some time), then not applying it wouldn't be okay - not using that cure would be pure evil, and comparable to torture or, say, forcibly denying someone their eyesight or hearing or limb.

I now realize I have made myself not as clear as I supposed, sorry.

I wanted to refer only to "designing" children and/or "choosing them", not to, for example, a cure for Down's syndrome (assuming there could be one): what we have achieved with prenatal diagnosis is -in this case-, I reckon you will agree with me on this, is equivalent to eugenics.

I do not think medical interventions (apart from say quarantines for contagious diseases etc) should be compulsory: illness and its acceptance is part and an important one of our lives. Suffering is unavoidable, and one can lead a very human and happy life in sickness and pain. But this last point is something on which I have not made up my mind clearly yet, certainly.

But torture? It would depend on too many issues to compare not giving a treatment with torture. I might agree in some cases (very easy, very cheap and a "huge" rate of succesa).

But I am digressing. Thanks for your points anyway, this is a thorny and difficult topic.

Our current practical possibilities for many severe genetical defects (many of them less common but much harsher than Down's - say, an expected lifespan measured in weeks) in essence is a choice of (a) suffer or (b) early prenatal detection followed by abortion. Unlike my earlier example (if a cure existed), this is not a nice choice to make, it's rather horrible; but I've had both the opportunity and need to think about it seriously and I wouldn't (couldn't) judge anyone who chose (b) in such situation, although it can be labeled as eugenics.

Thus, I have a deep dislike for reasoning such as "X leads to eugenics, ergo X is bad". Eugenics is a loaded, biased label. Any decision should be judged as okay or evil on its own; and if okay decisions lead to the label eugenics, then it doesn't make them less okay in any way and shouldn't affect the evaluation of that decision.

However, the word 'torture' and denying senses comes from me earlier reading about (hopefully rare) incidents of deaf parents intentionally choosing (via selective artificial insemination) to have kids that will be permanently deaf as well. I don't agree with that and consider it equal to, say, those parents cutting the ears of their infant after birth.

And from that comes the reverse argument - if the procedures become cheap, easy and safe, then in practice 'not-fixing' a damaged gene is almost the same as intentionally damaging a gene; since you could easily have had both options; chose the damaged one; and forced that choice and consequences on the kid. The main difference is choice of action vs choice of non-action, which are psychologically perceived differently; the Trolley problem is the classic example.

Thanks for your detailed reasoning.

Just to clarify: saying something is not OK per se does not mean judging the people who do that as 'bad.'

Theft is not OK per se but who am I to judge the hungry robber, for example?

The deaf people example is another example of dealing with human beings as things (choose one or the other as if both belonged to you. And the other is doomed to die, moreover), which is what puts me against these techniques.

We should definitely talk, this is a cumbersome means of communication.