If you knew you carried the gene for a hereditary condition, would you decide to have children anyway and just cross your fingers that your kids wouldn’t have that condition, or would you decide not to have children?

In today’s story, a couple disagrees about the answer to this question.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITAH for telling my partner 1/4 chance of passing on a hereditary condition to a child is very high odds?

So my partner and I recently did genetic testing for fun and we discovered we each carry a gene for a hereditary condition (hemochromatosis).

Now this was concerning to me because I think that 1/4 or 25% chance of passing it on to a child is very high.

I realize that there is varying levels of how severe the condition can be.

However what really concerned me even more was that my partner was willing to take that 1/4 risk even if it had been another hypothetical condition such as the child being both deaf and blind, or the child having other horrific genetic conditions that would really impact the quality of life they could have.

She doesn’t think it’s worth the risk.

Is it really fair to risk it if the child could potentially have to suffer?

What if we had other genetically normal children but the disabled one took up all the time and resources and all of the kids end up suffering?

My partner argued that healthy people also randomly have children with disabilities, which is true but I think it is totally different because that is random and not really preventable or out of personal negligence.

She doesn’t agree with her partner’s math.

My partner also suggested that 1/4 is just odds and hypothetically we could have a 100 children and all of them are unhealthy.

To me that’s just bad logic and bad math since everytime you keep having healthy kid the odds of having the next one having the condition go higher and higher.

I think just my partner willing to take such a huge risk (not just with hemochromatosis) was very unsettling.

AITAH?

If they hadn’t done the genetic testing for fun, they never would’ve known, so many people probably have hereditary conditions that they don’t know about.

Is it wrong to have kids if you know the risk?

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person thinks there’s a bigger issue.

This person is on her side.

Here’s a person whose parents rolled the dice and lost.

This person is also on her side.

Another person compares it to an elevator.

Maybe they should get tested again just to make sure.

What a thing to find out.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.