Comments on: Choosing disabled, not designer, babies

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 17:59:42 +0000

Thanks, Stephen, for the link—–the issues raised in the article open questions that are not easy to answer.

By: Stephen Drake

Stephen Drake — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 15:57:44 +0000

I wanted to stress something the Times article failed to make absolutely clear. McCullough and Duchesneau didn’t make use of prenatal screening to ensure any specific outcome.

Here’s a link to a BMJ article about them:

http://jme.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/28/5/283

Quote from the article:
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The women, both professionals in the mental health field, insist that they would still love their child if it could hear: “A hearing baby would be a blessing. A deaf baby would be a special blessing”.
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Another quote from the article:
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Ken Connor, president of the Family Research Council, a profamily organisation, also criticises the deliberate attempt to create a deaf child. “To intentionally give a child a disability, in addition to all the disadvantages that come as a result of being raised in a homosexual household, is incredibly selfish”, he claims.
***
Connor’s statement proves a point I often try to make to people. Many Christian Conservatives feel the world would be better with fewer of us in it. They just disagree with the “left” on how that is best accomplished.

–Stephen

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 14:42:54 +0000

Good point, Zilari—-Dr. Darshak M. Sanghavi, the pediatric cardiologist who wrote the article writes in the last paragraph:

Of course, part of me wonders whether speaking the same language or being the same height guarantees closer families. But it’s not for me to say. In the end, our energy is better spent advocating for a society where those factors won’t matter.

By: Kassiane

Kassiane — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 03:53:15 +0000

If it isn’t selfish for parents to pre-screen against conditions, I don’t see why it’s selfish to screen FOR those conditions-seeing as the parents likely HAVE them and know they aren’t the hell they’re made out to be. IVF tends to be a one shot deal, or used to be.

Were I to have kids biologically (not likely, I’d probably foster, but this is an ‘if’) i dont know that I’d know what to do with a neurotypical kid! I’d know how to teach him/her somersaults and cartwheels, but that isn’t…LIFE. And honestly, it would kill me when my son/daughter was embarrassed by mom having a seizure or freaking out in some other way at the store or whatever. But they’d still be my child, and while I’d UNDERSTAND an autistic kid better, I’d love them no less regardless of neurology or anything else.

Small at birth would be good though….

By: zilari

zilari — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 03:26:01 +0000

The potential for parents to be able to choose their future childrens’ attributes is really going to start bringing unexamined prejudices to the surface, I imagine. If parents are allowed to select for a non-deaf baby, what is the rationale for not allowing them to select a deaf baby? Either way, you’re still choosing one potential person over another.

And you’re not choosing between “disabled” or “non-disabled” anyway, but rather, between a set of potential *entire persons*, each with a unique set of initial conditions.

By: Daisy

Daisy — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 02:11:52 +0000

I am hearing impaired. My son is visually impaired (for practical purposes, blind) and has Aspergers Syndrome. We don’t have the same disability, but we share other things in common — like our open-mindedness toward others with disabilities.

By: natalia

natalia — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 23:40:37 +0000

if it happens that we have any, we would take whatever baby God gives us, even if it turns out NT. i mean how confusing could s/he be if we know each other from when s/he’s small?

By: Someone

Someone — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 20:08:57 +0000

I can understand the need for having children that are similar to oneself, but this whole thing is pretty selfish.