Great. Maybe we will have less cystic fibrosis in the world. Not sure many people would argue they would be keen for their children to inherit that. There is a big difference between knowing you naturally are a carrier of a disease, and acting on that info, and then manipulating radically and arbitrarily the genetics of humanity. Regulation internationally is fairly clear, sifting out incredibly debilitating disease is going to be ok. Making your children more aryan looking, not so much. Now if only they posted a recent STI panel result too.
You'd be fine with someone not finding a partner because they have a chance that their child would carry a disease? Something like "I cannot find a husband because my child will have a 5% chance of cystic fibrosis, so nobody will go for me".
That isn't remotely how that works. There is no circumstance whatsoever where your child has a 5 percent chance of having CF.
CF is a homozygous recessive disorder. Both parents have to contribute a defective gene in order for the child to have CF. If one parent is a carrier and the other is not, there is zero chance of the child having CF, barring random mutations which have been known to happen. If both parents are carriers, there is a 50 percent chance the child will be a carrier, a 25 percent chance the child will have no defective genes and a 25 percent chance the child will have CF.
If you actually have CF, you have two defective genes and you can only produce children who are either carriers or who have CF, depending on the genes contributed by the other parent. If the other parent is not a carrier, the children cannot have CF.
As someone who both has CF and has raised a child with it, I absolutely do not want more children with CF. It's a horrible burden for the parents and only a deeply sick sadist would wish such a thing upon their child.
I have never lacked for male interest. I don't know why the hell that is because I'm quite open about my medical situation. I am now menopausal, so it is a moot point. But I absolutely spent some years agonizing over how to screen out CF carriers from the dating pool. Having another child with CF is one of my worst nightmares. I would rather be taken out and shot.
Uh, no. All other heritable diseases are either homozygous recessive or they are passed via a single dominant gene. In neither case is there a 5 percent chance of passing it on. All recessive disorders follow the exact same math outlined above.
And I am guessing that's not a case where they have identified specific genes. Please correct me if I am wrong. But I am not aware of bipolar genes being a thing.
There is a difference between hand wavy "runs in the family, but we don't really know how it works" and a bona fide genetic disorder whose alleles have been mapped to some degree or another.
Edit: To be perfectly clear, if it is not genetic and merely tends to run in families, it may be due to a variety of nongenetic factors, such as diet and lifestyle. Smoking also tends to run in families. Smoking is not a genetic disorder, though it significantly impacts health.
If it is not genetic, it's heritability is not going to show up on your 23 and me profile. Fretting that it will basically means you don't know what you are talking about.
There is a disease that was thought to be genetic, but was ultimately traced to ritual cannibalism spreading an infection. Relatives would eat the dead and what body part you got depended upon how closely related you were. This caused the disease to very much mimic a genetic disorder in its pattern of dispersal throughout the family.
"Runs in families" needs to be very clearly distinguished from genetic disorders per se. The former suggests correlation with an as yet unidentified cause or causes, as there may be various contributing factors. The latter is a case of identified cause.
Easy enough to confuse if your own life does not depend upon it, but absolutely not the same thing.
No, but you are being intentionally insulting in violation of HN guidelines and also moving the goal posts. I already stated above my diagnosis appears to be no barrier whatsoever to getting romantically involved with someone. Except from my end, as I have chosen to be celibate for medical reasons for a lot of years.
I am 100 percent okay with someone like me being able to screen out carriers. Because I have CF, it is entirely up to the father's genetic contribution as to the outcome. I am also 100 percent okay with having some means to have a potentially awkward conversation up front.
There are, in fact, worse things in life than sleeping alone.
I think the OP you responded to is being intentionally obtuse, you have made your point clear repeatedly. If you are aware you have CF gene and are also aware your partner does too, then you will not mate with them and instead find another mate. Some diseases can be eliminated like this.
I also have a condition similar to you and there is no way I'm letting another child suffer with that, so I'm not going to ever mate with a woman who carries that gene.
I think the value in knowing upfront is you just avoid getting attached to begin with and you go bond with someone who doesn't introduce such big scary questions to the relationship. It is much easier to walk away before you get attached, no hard feelings. It is only when you fall in love first, have already invested substantial time into the relationship and then find out you both carry genes for something horrifying that it winds up being an agonizing question.
