My friend muses:
So I was watching the kids out doing the Shinerama today, raising money for cystic fibrosis research when it dawned on me. They are raising money for this cause, to find a cure for an awful disease, while also supporting strongly the death of such children before they are born through their student governments and unfettered access to abortion. CF rates fell from 1/2714 before pre-natal genetic testing to 1/3608 in 2000. It could be even lower now.
I’m grateful to disability rights folks for raising these points–it’s incumbent on the rest of us to connect the dots between abortion and the effects it has on the differently-abled around us. Or not around us, as the case is more and more.
by 
That’s one way to eliminate a disease…
I had never thought of it like that, it’s definitely an interesting point. Smart friend!
Given enough time, cystic fibrosis could be eliminated this way. Natural selection is already going about that – having just one of the recessive allele ceased to be an advantage when cholera ceased to be a common disease in developed countries.
Down’s Syndrome is also in decline due to the availability of prenatal testing – but unlike CF, that one can’t be eliminated from the gene pool. No inherited factor.
On the contrary Suricou. I have a PhD in Molecular Genetics. And let me assure you, natural selection has not been getting rid of CF. That’s the whole point of recessive alleles — they can stick around at high frequencies because carriers pass on the mutant alleles, often without ever even knowing they carry the gene.
CF is not merely implicated in cholera. It is implicated in many diarrheal illnesses — including typhoid, and the very predominant E. coli. I am certain you will agree that E. coli is still very much a factor, even in developed countries. (Canada’s own recent tragedy with Walkerton is testament to this).
So I would disagree with Suricou’s comment and reiterate that there is a chilling truth to what was posted on PWPL. Natural selection is not making a dent in CF. A decline in the observed incidence of cystic fibrosis is due to prenatal testing.
And there is nothing “natural” about that.
I was wondering the very same thing myself, when I saw the college students collecting for CF. How many of them have any idea that these kids are being aborted? perhaps I will have to start talking to them. Thanks for the info.
Cynthia, I didn’t say anything about speed :> It’s been perhaps a hundred years here since cholora ceased to be a major disease of the lower classes. That’s a whole four generations. You’re not going to see anything happen in four generations. Give it another few hundred.
Artificial selection isn’t going to make any significent impact either – it’s just not widely available in population terms. I only meant to say that the CF allele *could* be eliminated, in theory, given enough resources. Not that it would be practical in the immediate future, or even the near future.