Gene technology threatens new racism: Vatican

Gene technology threatens new racism: Vatican

GENEVA (Reuters) – Technology allowing parents to choose the genetic characteristics of their babies threatens to breed new forms of racism, the Vatican told a United Nations race conference on Wednesday.

Pope Benedict earlier this week said the heated U.N. forum, which several Western powers are boycotting to avoid giving legitimacy to criticism of Israel, was an important initiative to confront all forms of modern discrimination.

"The Holy See is also alarmed by the still latent temptation of eugenics that can be fueled by techniques of artificial procreation and the use of 'superfluous embryos'," Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, Vatican observer to the U.N. in Geneva said.

"The possibility of choosing the color of the eyes or other physical characteristic of a child could lead to the creation of a 'subcategory of human beings' or the elimination of human beings that do not fulfill the characteristics predetermined by a given society."

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has cast a long shadow over the Geneva meeting that formally wraps up on Friday.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made international headlines on its opening day on Monday when he denounced Israel as a racist state, prompting dozens of delegates to stream out.

Pro-Israeli and Jewish groups had urged the Vatican to boycott the meeting alongside Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Canada, and Israel.

But Tomasi said it was important for religious voices to be heard at such forums.

"In the fight against racism, faith communities play a major part," he said.
He also cited concerns that "an increased fragmentation of social relations in our multicultural societies" and the world's economic crisis has made vulnerable people even more so.
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-HECK!

This is actually a really interesting notion. I'd like to hear what you guys think.

-HECK!

Uh, not sure.

If you want the kid to have blue eyes, and a lot of folks go for it, then brown eyes will be rare and more sought after maybe. I don't know.

I see it like cheating at a computer game, you make some hacks, you get more of what you want.

I think the Vatican is more cenrned with the misuse of this gene technology and I know it's somethings that alarms doctors. I could be wrong but I thought that this gene technolgy was supposed to be used to make sure children werent born with certain dieseases and disabilities and when it comes to that side of this I personally see nothing wrong with it.
The Vatican do have a point though about using gene technology to make a child have blue eys blonde hair etc etc but I dont think it's something they have to worry about, using gene technology to make your kid look better is hardly going to be cheap and somehow I dont think the national health over here or you medical insurance in the states will cover this kind of treatment so I dont think we are going to have to worry about sub categories of people just yet.

I think this is just the Vatican being silly (again) if you have brown eyes and black hair, don't you want to your kids to have brown eyes and black hair? People generally want their kids to look like them so there's not going to be an influx of Aryan kids being born to African American families.

Doctors wouldn't allow that sort of choosing in IVF screening anyway, the screening process is in place for hereditry diseases, some of which, with genetic screening can be wiped out if they are not passed onto another generation.

I seriously doubt we'll ever end up in a Gataca-type society where only those that are gentically perfect are accpted.

a place like China might