December 8, 2006--Fanaticism LXXVII--Praying For A Little One
As a non-parent, I'm always fascinated by those holiday cards that include pictures of just our friend’s children. Why not, I always think, have a picture that includes mommy and daddy too? Aren’t they also family members? But, again, how much do I know about what it truly means to be a parent, to have children of one’s own.
For many having kids is obviously and understandably the most important thing they ever do; for others it’s their way to project themselves into the future; and for yet other parents, it’s a way to help the next generation advance, to have a better life than their own. My father fit into this latter category of parents when he spoke, eugenically, about how my brother and I represented his hope for an “improvement in the breed.” He also liked horses!
This eugenic memory was starkly evoked by a recent article in the NY Times about how a growing number of couples, when having children, engage in what can only be called selective breeding. (Article linked below.)
Here’s how it works—through a process called Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) embryos made up of the potential father’s sperm and mother’s ovum are created in a test tube and genetically tested before being placed in the woman’s womb. Fundamentalists aside, this is a useful way to see if the baby would eventually turn out to have cystic fibrosis or Huntington’s disease and, if so, the fertilized embryo can be, what’s the right word here, discarded, excluded, or if you insist, aborted.
So far sort of so good.
But PGD is also being employed in a very different way—more and more potential parents are using the process to select embryos that have genetic “defects” and then place them in mothers’ wombs
Who, you ask, might do something this seemingly cruel? In some cases deaf people who want to be certain they have deaf children. These parents do not view this genetic condition, deafness, as a defect or disability; but rather as a way to have their children “enter into a rich, shared culture.” One deaf lesbian couple put it this way, “A hearing baby would be a blessing, but a deaf baby would be a special blessing.” And so they PGD to make sure that special blessing occurred.
Though some medical ethicists have questions about this, others argue that there are procedures in common use to help babies born with “idiopathic short stature” to take growth hormones. So what’s wrong with doing the opposite?
In fact, for some, that’s exactly what they're doing--the opposite. Some parents who are dwarfs want to have babies who will also be dwarfs. A well-named Mary Ellen Little, a New Jersey nurse who is a dwarf had her first baby before PGD was available and prayed for “a little one.” But to avoid the uncertainty, since it was available when she was ready to have her second child, she used the test and as a result had a dwarf.
As it turned out, the prayers worked and her first child blessedly is also a little one. Thus, in her case, the Fundamentalists can feel good about the power of prayer, and the secularists can feel equally well about the efficacy of science.
I, on the other hand, can’t wait to get Ms. Little’s Christmas card.
For many having kids is obviously and understandably the most important thing they ever do; for others it’s their way to project themselves into the future; and for yet other parents, it’s a way to help the next generation advance, to have a better life than their own. My father fit into this latter category of parents when he spoke, eugenically, about how my brother and I represented his hope for an “improvement in the breed.” He also liked horses!
This eugenic memory was starkly evoked by a recent article in the NY Times about how a growing number of couples, when having children, engage in what can only be called selective breeding. (Article linked below.)
Here’s how it works—through a process called Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) embryos made up of the potential father’s sperm and mother’s ovum are created in a test tube and genetically tested before being placed in the woman’s womb. Fundamentalists aside, this is a useful way to see if the baby would eventually turn out to have cystic fibrosis or Huntington’s disease and, if so, the fertilized embryo can be, what’s the right word here, discarded, excluded, or if you insist, aborted.
So far sort of so good.
But PGD is also being employed in a very different way—more and more potential parents are using the process to select embryos that have genetic “defects” and then place them in mothers’ wombs
Who, you ask, might do something this seemingly cruel? In some cases deaf people who want to be certain they have deaf children. These parents do not view this genetic condition, deafness, as a defect or disability; but rather as a way to have their children “enter into a rich, shared culture.” One deaf lesbian couple put it this way, “A hearing baby would be a blessing, but a deaf baby would be a special blessing.” And so they PGD to make sure that special blessing occurred.
Though some medical ethicists have questions about this, others argue that there are procedures in common use to help babies born with “idiopathic short stature” to take growth hormones. So what’s wrong with doing the opposite?
In fact, for some, that’s exactly what they're doing--the opposite. Some parents who are dwarfs want to have babies who will also be dwarfs. A well-named Mary Ellen Little, a New Jersey nurse who is a dwarf had her first baby before PGD was available and prayed for “a little one.” But to avoid the uncertainty, since it was available when she was ready to have her second child, she used the test and as a result had a dwarf.
As it turned out, the prayers worked and her first child blessedly is also a little one. Thus, in her case, the Fundamentalists can feel good about the power of prayer, and the secularists can feel equally well about the efficacy of science.
I, on the other hand, can’t wait to get Ms. Little’s Christmas card.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
5:38 AM
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