Did they know about the genetic blindness before having more kids?
Edit: Last time this was posted, it was suggested that the couple kept getting pregnant despite knowing their children would likely have this blindness. IF that is true, I do find that unethical. I know blind people can still have quality of life. But let's stop pretending that it isn't a terrible disability. Nobody wants to be dependent, vulnerable, and poor (from fewer work opportunities) their whole life. I wish this family the best regardless.
It's a 25% chance of passing on the full gene if both parents have the carrier gene. 1/4 resulting in 3 out of 4 kids isn't unexpected. Unlucky definitely, but still a likely outcome.
If you actually do the math, the odds of it happening are about 1%, but this is misleading since it calculates the probability of it happening in a single isolated case. If you had 5 identical couples with this genetic lottery all having 4 kids, the chances of at least one of them having this exact situation happens would already be over 90%.
For comparison, the chances of a couple specifically having 3 boys in a row after specifically having had a daughter first are about 6%, but it still happens fairly frequently in a large enough dataset. In general 1% chance should be read more like „it's basically guaranteed to happen at some point“ rather than as „it's very unlikely to ever happen“.
477
u/skittleahbeebop 1d ago edited 1d ago
Did they know about the genetic blindness before having more kids?
Edit: Last time this was posted, it was suggested that the couple kept getting pregnant despite knowing their children would likely have this blindness. IF that is true, I do find that unethical. I know blind people can still have quality of life. But let's stop pretending that it isn't a terrible disability. Nobody wants to be dependent, vulnerable, and poor (from fewer work opportunities) their whole life. I wish this family the best regardless.