sick in a cup...
Posted on 01/03/2008 7:31:16 PM PST by Lorianne
Wanting to have children who follow in one’s footsteps is an understandable desire. But a coming article in the journal Fertility and Sterility offers a fascinating glimpse into how far some parents may go to ensure that their children stay in their world — by intentionally choosing malfunctioning genes that produce disabilities like deafness or dwarfism.
The article reviews the use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or P.G.D., a process in which embryos are created in a test tube and their DNA is analyzed before being transferred to a woman’s uterus. In this manner, embryos destined to have, for example, cystic fibrosis or Huntington’s disease can be excluded, and only healthy embryos implanted.
Yet Susannah A. Baruch and colleagues at the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University recently surveyed 190 American P.G.D. clinics, and found that 3 percent reported having intentionally used P.G.D. “to select an embryo for the presence of a disability.”
In other words, some parents had the painful and expensive fertility procedure for the express purpose of having children with a defective gene. It turns out that some mothers and fathers don’t view certain genetic conditions as disabilities but as a way to enter into a rich, shared culture.
It’s tempting to see this practice as an alarming trend; for example, the online magazine Slate called it “the deliberate crippling of children.”
But a desire for children with genetic defects isn’t new. In 2002, for example, The Washington Post Magazine profiled Candace A. McCullough and Sharon M. Duchesneau, a lesbian and deaf couple from Maryland who both attended Gallaudet University and set out to have a deaf child by intentionally soliciting a deaf sperm donor.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Some folks in the capital-D Deaf community rejoice when their kids are born deaf. Same sort of psychology.
WOW! They can trace this sort of thing back for, like, 5 years!! Man, that's pretty much forever!
sick in a cup...
I've been predicting that there would come a time where cerebal palsy or diabetes or whatever would become a lifestyle choice. (So don't discriminate now.)
Except of course that the choice is being made on behalf of someone else. Hey, I wonder if they're filing for handicapped plates along with the birth certificates.
The most famous case was the lesbian couple that sought out a sperm donor who would increase their likelihood of having a deaf daughter. I think the woman bore a (deaf?) son the first time and they kept trying until their got the daughter they intended to handicap.
CPS should’ve stepped in and taken away the child who’d already suffered abuse.
Why not cause some fetal alcohol syndrome or pediatric AIDS while they are at it?
It’s no fun going through life as a “victim” by yourself. Anyone who would deliberately hold you back to keep from surpassing them is not your friend.
Same sex couples are just waiting for the day when the “gay gene” is discovered so they don’t have to suffer the embarassment of explaining to their child why there is no parent of the opposite sex, what a turkey baster is, and why the parents are “always right” no matter what thousands of years of cultures around the world have practiced.
It’s specifically the Deafies and Dwarfs who want kids just like them.
What to do? What to do?
Someone’s gonna have to sponsor legislation criminalizing this. Considering the numbers, I don’t see losing the votes of deaf culturists and militant small people as politically crippling and I don’t see any PC types daring to go so far as to publicly demand mutant’s rights.
And we are expected to subsidize it. The nanny-state is part of the environment, and this is a drive to adapt to make use of the “resource” (or, to be more accurate, this is a result of the lack of pressure which would otherwise inhibit - directly or by attrition - such stupidity).
I remember being outraged by the article.
The deaf lezzies specifically wanted a GAY, deaf sperm donor.
Homosexuals are made not born so perhaps they have arranged to have their child molested by same-sex adults into the bargain?
Call me paranoid but you don’t have to choose deaf bio-parents to ensure your child is deaf.
I have wondered for years what might be revealed if all the deaf children of deaf parents were carefully physically examined and their medical histories carefully traced...
Because the one thing I know about liberal hypocrites is that they don't mind gay babies ... they just don't want to have gay babies. If there's a gene, there's a genetic test for it.
Well, they are mentally disordered to begin with so that isn’t much of a stretch.
“More important, as a physician who helps women dealing with complex fetal diseases, I’ve learned to respect a family’s judgment. Many parents share a touching faith that having children similar to them will strengthen family and social bonds.
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.
Dr. Darshak M. Sanghavi is pediatric cardiologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the author of “A Map of the Child: A Pediatrician’s Tour of the Body.”
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It’s the mushy, PC author who really makes me sick. A goddam doctor talking like that. Disgraceful.
What kind of Doctor is this?
Dwarfism is more than being short. There are many kinds of Dwarfism and most have other physically debilitating effects.
I have to question this doctor’s ethical compass. The first rule of medicine is do no harm. This doctor seems to have forgotten that rule.
This doctor is setting out to create children with birth defects that need not have those defects. That is morally and ethically repugnant.
hearken back to the 1920s. How about take whatever child God Chooses? We already know what happens when men start deciding who will live and who will not. Abortion hats taken enough. There is not something that makes it okay.
What sickos. I would want a healthy normal child irregardless of my own problems.
What sickos. I would want a healthy normal child irregardless of my own problems.
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