[Dean's World] Ron Coleman: "A special blessing"

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Posted by Ron Coleman:
"A special blessing"
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1165429248.shtml


     âA hearing baby would be a blessing,â Ms. Duchesneau [who is a deaf
     person] was quoted as saying. âA deaf baby would be a special
     blessing.â

     Born five years ago on Thanksgiving Day, the coupleâs son, Gauvin,
     was mostly deaf, and his parents chose to withhold any hearing
     aids.

   That's a quote from the Washington Post Magazine in 2002, discussed in
   this New York Times essay called "Wanting Babies Like Themselves, Some
   Parents Choose Genetic Defects." It's about, though it dare not put it
   quite this way, the utter moral confusion -- perversion, really --
   that turns a strong, positive outlook on life, even a life requiring
   one to bear disability, into a preference for life with that
   disability.

     Barbara Spiegel, a homemaker in Maine who has dwarfism, had a first
     pregnancy that ended in miscarriage. She underwent genetic testing
     during her second pregnancy, and because of a laboratory mix-up
     involving petri dishes, was told that her child would grow to
     normal height. She would have loved the child, she said, but in an
     interview, she recalled thinking, âWhat is life going to be like
     for her, when her parents are different than she is?â

     She worried that the child would be teased excessively. Ms.
     Spiegelâs best friend, who has average height, has a daughter with
     dwarfism, and the child sometimes comes to Ms. Spiegel for support;
     maybe an average-size child would also go to others for motherly
     advice. For a brief time, Ms. Spiegel grieved because she felt a
     dwarf baby would have been âjust precious.â But after a week, the
     mix-up was detected and she got her wish.

   It is group identity politics, "pride" politics, a philosophy, really,
   of narcissism, gone wild. The article quotes a number of doctors in
   fertility clinics. Many such clinics engage in genetic "selection" at
   the embryo-implantation stage for desirable traits, or merely desired
   but essentially function-neutral traits, such as height within the
   normal range). None of those quoted would agree to "select" for
   disabilities, but evidently some of the article subjects are doing it
   themselves. Others, evidently, are fervently wishing it.

   And where does the author, Dr. Darshak M. Sanghavi, pediatric
   cardiologist, come out? He's a perfect Times contributor, almost
   completely avoiding the moral quandary he's writing about by urging
   tolerance, diversity and universal love. It's not for him to say, as
   they say:

     [A]s a physician who helps women dealing with complex fetal
     diseases, Iâve learned to respect a familyâs judgment. . . . Of
     course, part of me wonders whether speaking the same language or
     being the same height guarantees closer families. But itâs not for
     me to say. In the end, our energy is better spent advocating for a
     society where those factors wonât matter.

   âWhat is life going to be like for her, when her parents are different
   than she is?â Hopefully, better. Taller. Normal. My parents want me to
   be different from them. Not in terms of rejecting their values and
   their heritage; but that is not genetic. No -- better. Better
   educated, healthier, happier. Flourishing where they were stunted, not
   sharing the same limitations, and certainly not desiring them. That's
   what a normal parent wants a child to be. Not a Mini Me, even if Me is
   mini in the first place.