Designer disability
‘Designer babies’ have generated a lot of discussion this week, and by 'discussion' I mean vitriolic polemic. I had decided to take the most cowardly route, which was to hide behind the libertarian catch-all of freedom of choice. That was until I came across the stunning statistic that 3% of fertility clinics have helped families create children with a disability.* This has driven me squarely into the camp of the polemicists, and the only comment I can think to make is that I find this unequivocally appalling.
The Associated Press** reviews the finding with a quote from University of Minnesota bioethicist, Jeffrey Kahn "...It's an ethically challenging question and certainly it will trouble people, but I think there are good, thoughtful reasons why people who are deaf or ... dwarves could say, 'I want a child like me,".
When I read statements like this, I cannot help but think of some advice a colleague once gave me - always keep an open mind, but never so open that your brain falls out. Well Dr. Kahn, I am sorry, but I really think your brain has fallen out.
He continues, "If people in a shared culture all have the common clinical defect, then it's maybe not a defect in the traditional sense".
This is taking political correctness to its most ludicruous and illogical extreme - the suggestion being that it is understandable to want to manufacture a disability so our offspring may share this common 'culture' of ours. Surely, if we have learned anything from political correctness (bear with me here), it is the importance of embracing other cultures, and celebrating diversity. The thought of handicapping our own children so that they can be more like us is the most preposterous use of a potentially wonderful technology that one could possibly imagine.
* From a survey of 192 fertility clinics, in the obstetrics journal Fertility and Sterility, September 2006, Issue 3, p. 468-72.
** Lindsey Tanner, The Associated Press, posted at (among others) www.thestate.com - December 22, 2006.
