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I mean, in response to the last one, the Federation does allow (and sometimes advocates) for the correction of birth defects.
Julian: DNA resequencing for any reason other than repairing serious birth defects is illegal. Any genetically enhanced human being is barred from serving in Starfleet or practising medicine.
Deep Space Nine, "Doctor Bashir, I presume"
Doctor: Yes. It's a girl. And aside from the deviated spine, she's healthy.
Paris: Will she need surgery?
Doctor: Fortunately, we've advanced beyond that. Genetic modification is the treatment of choice.
Voyager, "Lineage"
So I imagine plenty of disabilities do end up being erased, it's just that being disabled is also socially accepted to a much greater extent than today.
To add here, not everyone is born with disability but sometimes shit just happens
Yeah, I think for Geordy his eyes just got consistently worse until he was blind without a visor. On Ba'ku his eyes recovered briefly.
He was born blind and remained blind until he got his first VISOR at 5 years old. It's in the TNG episode Hero Worship. His optical nerve was regenerating on Ba'ku but whatever his disability, it would eat away at it once he left the planet.
I could've sworn he was born without optic nerves or something like that.
He mentions that his eyes will deteriorate again once he leaves Ba'ku
From https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Geordi_La_Forge#Early_life :
Due to a birth defect, he was born blind
By the way, "again" in that context doesn't necessarily imply his eyes deteriorated before. It references the previous change, but that includes the improvement, not just some hypothetical previous instance of deterioration.
It's like saying "he went in the door, then he went back out again," which doesn't imply he had previously exited.
Yeah, but if his birth defect had no degenerative component his eyes wouldn't get worse after being healed by Ba'kus energy field
“DNA resequencing”
If someone in Star Trek is born with a bum knee, they just laser surgery the knee. Deformed backbone, replicate a new backbone. A lot of defects and disabilities can be solved by 24th-century medicine without involving genetics.
McCoy gave that old lady a pill and she regrew her kidney using her own aged body inside of an hour. Apparently, fixes of that type are an over the counter prescription and don’t run afoul of the eugenics laws either.
Approved genetic modifications is more for things like conjoined births or fetal organ failure. Too many toes? Here’s some special shoes, carry on.
Since when is DNA holy scripture? I'd be optimizing that every day.
In Star Trek? Around the aftermath of the Eugenics wars
Yep, but Star Trek is written to make a point about society.
It's interesting how an Earth conflict influences the whole Federation, tho
It feels very human to ignore the lessons of history because it didn't happen directly to them.
But its also very human to let perfect be the enemy of good, or to do irrational shit like declare a style of facial hair forever associated with evil because one evil guy used it (As opposed to associating it with say a famous comedian) like we're afraid to say voldemort.
This is a worthy take that is unfortunately quite rarely seen. People are just not rational enough.