Disabled people and gene therapy?

I recently saw a programme about doctors being able to cure birth defects in unborn children that would otherwise have left them with a severe disabilty like being unable to walk.

There were people in wheelchairs giving their point of view and a lot of them were against this practise because they were all saying that they live a happy life and why should we meddle with nature and were the scientists nazis trying to get rid of all disabled people?

Dont you think they were missing the point though?Wouldnt they rather be able to have been able to walk about instead of confined to a wheelchair if they had a choice?

Surely it would be better if no one was born disabled if it was possible to prevent it!!

Do you agree?

I think there is a lot of confusion about this issue. The radicalists shout "We are people and there is nothing wrong with disability" ....OK fair enough. I dont have a problem with disability or disabled people. But why do others need to be born that way if there is a cure? Its like saying Cancer is a fact of life, we have the drugs to treat it but we wont do it cos cancer sufferers are people too! It is not logical. Disbled people should be a real part of the community, REAL inclusion, not just lip service and to be able to fulfill their potential. But if I had the choice of gene therapy and a child free of disablilites I would want to take the therapy. There is surely no question that disabilty causes suffering whether that be physical, mental or emotional, and I would want to avoid that for any child of mine if I could.

up until just after the second world war any body born with a dissability of any kind were whipped away from the mother and put into an asylum and forgotten...................also any baby being borm prematuraly were left to die......nowdays they try to save all babies that is why there are so many nowdays

i think it depends on the seriousness of the illness. i think in a modern society it would be for the benefit of the child if they coould recieve life changing treatment compared to the amount of pain and suffering let alone bullying they would recieve. i mean i have a wheelchiar that i have to use sometimes im so lucky i dont need it all the time. but the way people talk down to me or say stuff to me makes me angry, so i guess it depends on what cause its used for.

This is an extremely complicated and important question - Stephen Hawking (for example) is one of the most influential scientists, yet he is confined to a wheelchair, would he have done the same work if he had been a different person - we don't know.
The most obvious problem is, what is a defect ?
Do we change genes so there are no homosexual people, no violent people, no people with low IQ, no dissidents ?
Perhaps secret laboratories would start producing killers with no conscience, who don't feel pain and always follow orders . . .
What other effects might the gene changes have ?

well i have a brain injury from lack of oxygen a a few days after my birth i would welcome a cure if it comes i dream of it all the time what i would do and what i could have been if i was not disabled don't get me wrong i love my life and everything but i Carnot help but wonder if it is only a half of what might have been. i can not speak for every disabled person and indead i know Friends of mine who say they would never wish to be cured whatever but i guess it is each to their own and society is a diverse thing and needs to be