The ideology of the “disabled movement”, at its fringe, can generate some arrestingly wrongheaded ideas. “Susannah A. Baruch and colleagues at the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University recently surveyed 190 American P.G.D. clinics, and found that 3 percent reported having intentionally used P.G.D. ‘to select an embryo for the presence of a disability.’ In other words, some parents had the painful and expensive fertility procedure for the express purpose of having children with a defective gene. It turns out that some mothers and fathers don’t view certain genetic conditions as disabilities but as a way to enter into a rich, shared culture.” (Darshak M. Sanghavi, M.D., “Wanting Babies Like Themselves, Some Parents Choose Genetic Defects”, New York Times, Dec. 5). Cathy Young writes: “The movement [“Deaf culture”] holds that there is nothing wrong with being deaf, only with how society has treated deaf people. … But it’s a leap from this understanding [that deaf persons have suffered from bias, stereotyping and unfairness] to the bizarre idea that the lack of hearing is no more a disability than being female or black. … The majority of deaf people do not belong to Deaf culture.” (syndicated/Boston Globe, Nov. 6).
Disabled rights: the separatist fringe
The ideology of the “disabled movement”, at its fringe, can generate some arrestingly wrongheaded ideas. “Susannah A. Baruch and colleagues at the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University recently surveyed 190 American P.G.D. clinics, and found that 3 percent reported having intentionally used P.G.D. ‘to select an embryo for the presence of […]
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This is freaky.
I suppose that we are obligated to be understanding, but I’m having trouble doing that. If these parents were selecting for stronger, faster and smarter genes, of course, they’d be called Nazis. Or, say, blonde hair and blue eyes. But the desire for children that share your traits is pretty universal,and I just read something in the NYT Magazine about a black/white gay couple that wants their designer child to be biracial. Obviously, like the deaf parents, they aren’t going to be targeted as “racists,” etc. But it’s the same thing.
I don’t know how in this day and age you’d legislate against the practice, because you’d be in the now-forbidden position of making a determination of which genetic traits are good and which are bad. The “bizarre idea that the lack of hearing is no more a disability than being female or black” isn’t bizarre at all, given the now unbelievable reaches of politically correct orthodoxy. The position that we cannot make general-direction societal determinations about such things is going to launch us into some very weird territory. If it hasn’t already – I sense a sort of fetishization of disability creeping into our society, whereby we single out the disabled (of any kind) for lavish treatment and spending, and virtually ignore those on the other end of the spectrum (my apologies to those who reject the idea of such a spectrum). Gifted programs are cut, while “special education” programs are given unlimited funding. All in the name of a fair, equitable society. Yet if no child is left behind, no child gets ahead.
“Yet if no child is left behind, no child gets ahead.”
Give that man a prize!
If we were literally leaving no child behind, no one would be allowd to READ.
This is not a sarcastic question.
Was any licensed doctor, in the US, named in these selections? If a licensed doctor knowingly participated in selecting a child with a handicap, that is a violation of his oath, to be reported to the licensing board and the child abuse hotline. Other doctors with personal knowledge of such collaboration with the intentional handicapping of a child have an affirmative duty to report such conduct.
I bring my normal child into a doctor’s office. I request, “Using sterile surgical technique that will do no other damage and anesthesia to prevent pain, take an ice pick, destroy both my child’s hearing.”
Someone has to explain how the scenario in the article differs from that in its intent and result.
One knows dwarfism is associated with a short lifespan, and physically painful conditions. What about the doctor that decides to shoot a patient because he has reached the age of 30? How is the intentional selecting for a condition associated with a shortened lifespan, and physical pain different from shortening life by murder. Shooting someone involves less pain, less torment, less worry about the future than selecting for a condition with known physical consequences. Many murders are impulsive, this is the ultimate in intentional injury, with careful selection, using difficult techniques.
Walter, with respect, this may be an area where we are underlawyered.
I would support a lawsuit brought on behalf of the child against the parents and the doctor for wrongful genetic selection, a new intentional tort, qualified for exemplary damages.
This form of PC is unbearable, and merits criminal penalties for all parties participating.
Supremacy Claus is correct. This goes completely against the Doctors Oath.