Should aspies have children?

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Aside from the technical issues, there are some major ethical issues to tackle on the road to technology aimed at gene selection. We're still grappling with the ethics of abortion. Experimenting with genes runs the risk of creating humans with very serious medical and developmental problems. It's impossible to fully understand genes enough to do such work therapeutically without experimentation, and it's impossible to do those experiments without making a few mistakes along the way. There are so many horrible things that happen in nature when genes get messed up. As one example, consider Lesch Nyhan syndrome - one gene goes wrong and you wind up with intellectual disability and constant excruciating pain that causes people to bite their own lips and fingers off. Gene experimentation on humans runs so many awful risks that I can't imagine the benefits would be worth it. But who knows, people may figure out ways around these issues...or the future eugenicists of the world may find a way to ignore the ethical problems and do it anyway.

Given the historical record, it seems likely that the experiments will be done, ethics be damned.

On the one hand, this knowledge may bring wonders and miracles, but on the other hand, to borrow a phrase from one of my favorite orators, we may yet "sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science."

I would think that people who procreate would have more of an incentive to care about the Earth's future than those who do not.

(I am not saying people who do not have children do not care, only that those who do, have a vested interest.)

A couple who has two children is only replacing themselves, not contributing to a higher population. If no couple had more than two kids the world's population would actually shrink, as some people would not want or not be able to have any children. In most first-world countries, most people are already choosing small families voluntarily. The population explosion is happening in places like India, where the majority of families are having many, many children. I think people who are concerned about overpopulation should focus their efforts there, and not on trying to convince people to abstain from parenthood completely.

I have a mild case of AS. I love children, and I would like to be a mom when I grow up and marry. But the problem is, AS is genetic, so my kids may very well wind up with AS, and a lot worse than I have it. AS isn't a bad thing in and of itself when it's mild (hey, neurodiversity!), but would it be irresponsible to bring kids into this world knowing they might have problems from it?

Two planets meet. The first asks: "So, how are you?"
The second answers: "Well, I'm sick, I've got Homo Sapiens."
The first replies: "Oh, I know that one. No worries, it'll pass."