The unwanted child might not be unneeded

  • This arti­cle in Mere Com­ments touches on a sub­ject that has been on my mind: the trou­bling trend of pro-choice rhetoric these days that seems more and more casual in assess­ing the value of peo­ple and of assert­ing the brav­ery of select­ing dis­abled peo­ple for extinc­tion before they’re born.

    The debate on abor­tion seems to be under­go­ing a sort of change. It seems more pos­si­ble than ever for peo­ple to admit what pro-lifers have always said: that abor­tion is basi­cally mur­der and large-scale abor­tion is basi­cally geno­cide. The hor­ri­ble thing is that mod­ern peo­ple are start­ing to admit that and just not care. Recently I feel like the dis­cus­sion has begun to cen­ter on whether a lit­tle human engi­neer­ing isn’t, after all, a good thing. I mean, y’know, not when Dr. Men­gele does it or any­thing. But should we highly-evolved, extremely sophis­ti­cated and achingly sen­si­tive peo­ple have to live in a world where chil­dren are born dis­abled? Shouldn’t the enlight­ened mother-to-be always play God for the good of the fetus (who she can call a child if she decides to keep it), and yes, for the good of The Rest of Us?

    The author [the mother of a Down’s syn­drome child] con­cludes, log­i­cally enough, that “there are many pro-choicers who, while pay­ing obei­sance to the rights of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, want at the same time to pre­serve their right to ensure that no one with dis­abil­i­ties will be born into their own fam­i­lies.” Her sto­ries also sug­gest that they would rather not have to encounter such freaks in pub­lic set­tings, or be respon­si­ble for any of the expense or trou­ble asso­ci­ated with their care.

    The ter­ri­ble thing about this is that even the basic premise seems deeply flawed to me. Our abil­i­ties to master-plan are extremely raw and almost always have dis­as­trous side effects (con­sider for exam­ple, the dread Home­own­ers’ Asso­ci­a­tions). We don’t know what peo­ple we need today or tomor­row. We haven’t the slight­est idea what bless­ing, what mercy may be brought to each of us by a ser­vice ren­dered either to or by those our soci­ety esteems so lit­tle? Who knows how many of their prayers have inter­ceded for those of us who thought we func­tioned at a higher level?

    I don’t think this ugly new chap­ter dooms only the retarded or crip­pled child. I think it dooms us all.


    Related posts:

    1. Jus­tice Fudd report­ing for duty
    2. When no one was look­ing, Cindy Shee­han went com­pletely mad
    3. Stem cells and Frist’s inconsistency

    October 18th, 2005 | Grace | No Comments |

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