Weeding Out the Undesirable

There seems to be so much talk about Genetic Screening and now a call for Genetic Therapy even for the (yet) unborn as the Push for Perfection rages on. I can't help but feel the need to ask this question; should a diagnosis of diversity and difference always be seen as a tragedy?

Society's need for "Designer" Babies grows and even though some seemingly devastating disabilities, diseases, physical challenges and frailties have a large affect on humanity, history has shown us that it has not all been a negative force with a need for elimination or cure. I sometimes feel adversity can be one of mankind's best tools for forcing creativity into motion. Let me give you a few examples:

Franklin D. Roosevelt - Polio kept him confined to a chair but his strong guidance helped us get through the Great Depression and WW 2.

Stephen Hawking - His challenges are many but his inner strength and intelligence are unparalleled in his contributions to physics & the field of astronomy.

Ray Charles - I can't help but think that his lack of sight helped him to see music in a way we can only dream to understand it.

Thomas Alva Edison - who had 1,093 patents for inventions in his lifetime, was too disruptive in his own classroom to the extent that his mother finally pulled him from conventional schooling and home-schooled him. I wonder what drugs they would have forced on him if he had lived in the present time?

I'm not saying that these (and many, many more) individuals would have been any less great without their challenges, but some part of me wonders if their strength came from the very, so called, "human weaknesses" that someday we wish to eliminate.

The list could go on and on with the names of many individuals throughout our past and in recent history that have used what some would see as a barrier or a difference to achieve remarkable and uncommonly distinctive things. Is it a possibility that without our challenges and obstacles we would lack our unique individuality and our ability to think original thoughts? Would our very own creative essence be lost in the quest for conformity and perfection? This is something we need to ponder and examine as we decide whether or not to dedicate humanity to a life of uniformity & perfection.