Bio-ethicist Sparks Furor by Suggesting Abortions of Disabled

CNSNEWS.com ^ | 11/25/02 | Robert B. Bluey

[kattracks]

(CNSNews.com) - Disability advocates and pro-life groups are comparing the process of genetic selection to Nazi eugenics after a scholar from the National Institutes of Health said America would benefit from aborting the blind and disabled.

In a speech earlier this month at the University of Rhode Island, biomedical ethicist Dan W. Brock said his views are not discriminatory, and he said any decision must be left to parents, without government intervention.

Brock told CNSNews.com that his beliefs are his own and do not represent those of the National Institutes of Health or the federal government. He also said it is not the first time he has faced criticism for his views.

The speech was meant, in part, to counter that criticism and offer a defense for genetic testing, which Brock said is not like the eugenics practiced by the Nazis. German dictator Adolf Hitler used eugenics, killing disabled individuals and then Jews, with the goal of creating a perfect society.

But two pro-life groups said Brock's theory could have a detrimental impact on future generations.

"It's a hidden agenda that they want to rid our country of people who may cause us to care for them and protect them and may even cost some money," said Tom Lothamer, interim director of Baptists for Life. "If we have that kind of a culture of death, then I believe our country is doomed. If we can do away with the disabled, then who's next?"

Wendy Wright, spokeswoman for Concerned Women for America, echoed those sentiments. She said Brock's theories undermine the field of bioethics and lead society down a dangerous path.

"It's particularly dangerous when you target people because of a disability," Wright said. "As we've seen throughout history, it's too easy for people who don't have a moral compass to fall into that way of thinking. Once people start down that slope, that inevitably expands to other classes of people."

Brock said this is not the first time he has been criticized by those in the disability and pro-life communities. As for the argument that he is promoting eugenics, "One thing doesn't always lead to every other thing," he said.

"One can distinguish between using this testing, either pre-conception or post-conception, to prevent the birth of children with very serious disabling diseases from any implications of how we should treat people who are born and live with those diseases," Brock said.

Other bioethics specialists have also challenged his views, including Adrienne Asch, a professor at Wellesley College, who said Brock has failed to understand how disabled individuals cope with their disabilities.

Brock, for instance, said blind individuals cannot enjoy the paintings at an art gallery and people with cognitive disabilities are unable to perform basic daily functions. For those reasons, he said, parents should give genetic testing some thought.

"Even after we've made all the accommodations of justice and equality of opportunity, there would still be some residual disadvantage from being seriously cognitively disabled or being blind," Brock said. "It's a judgment not about the person; it's a judgment about the condition and a judgment that it would be better if the children who are born don't have that condition."

Asch said blind individuals might not be able to see two-dimensional art, but that does not mean they cannot appreciate other things in life.

"Not every human being can do everything," Asch said, citing the athleticism of a basketball player or the knowledge of a mathematician. "Everybody has things they are able to experience and things they are not."

For Penny Reeder, who is blind, Brock's theories are hurtful. She said if genetic testing becomes prominent, parents would be faced with difficult ethical decisions.

"How dare he say that he's not denigrating people with disabilities when he's advocating aborting a pregnancy of a potential person with a disability. It's just amazing to me," said Reeder, who cited her job as a magazine editor as evidence that blind people can succeed.

Lothamer said the issue also extends beyond bioethics into an area where parents must decide if they should play the role of a higher being. But Brock was quick to counter that assessment as well.

"Medicine is in the business of messing with nature and God's will," he said. "Medicine tries to intervene in what would otherwise happen by natural processes or God's will. We normally think that if we can prevent serious suffering, then artificial interventions are justified."

Even Asch conceded that some parents would probably adopt Brock's way of thinking, but said she hopes those parents also consider the positive impact disabled individuals can have on society.

"I think people should get to make the decisions they want to make," Asch said. "I think they need to have better information about life with disability before they make those decisions, but if they ultimately make those decisions, then they make them."

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[DWSUWF]

"...If we can do away with the disabled, then who's next?"..."

I nominate 'Bio-Ethicists'.

[jimtorr]

it's a judgment about the condition and a judgment that it would be better if the children who are born don't have that condition."

In other words, it's better if those persons are never born. Brock has advocated aborting persons with disabilities in the past. In fact, Brock has advocated governmental pressure on parents of disabled babies to kill them for a period of up to several weeks after birth.

[wideawake]

I know Peter Singer, professor of ethics at Princeton University, has advocated legalizing this murder of weeks-old infants.

Has Brock also?

Because what Brock says here is sick and evil enough - if he's also advocating Singer's position, then the moral cancer is metastasizing.

[Lilly]

These people are meglomaniacs! Who gives them the right to play God?
No matter what the reason is, there is no hope for the soul of anyone who kills innocent babies!
This is a pox on our depraved society!

[nickcarraway]

Bio-ethicist Sparks Fuhrer

[Nora]

Interesting bit - the problem is that searching the NIH web site turns up only one hit for Brock, and that hit mentions him in one paragraph only, talking about dental care for kids. A little Googling turns up that he is a professor at Brown. I am as pro life, in all its stages and forms, as they come but this one sounds a bit like crying wolf.

[jimtorr]

Ooops, my mistake. It was Peter Singer I was thinking of, who has advocated infanticide.

Note to self: Do Not Reply on FR before morning tea.

[truthandlife]

The pro-death crowd is sickening! I do hope conservatives keep pressuring your congressmen for pro-life legislation to protect unborn babies. Pro-lifer voters saved their hides in the 2002 election. Now it is time for some payback.

[wideawake]

These people are meglomaniacs! Who gives them the right to play God?

Their philosophical viewpoint does. They believe that the universe is essentially a meaningless place and that human beings assign meaning to it.

This basically leads to material comfort being the standard that they consistently fall back to again and again. Since being blind is inherently uncomfortable, they feel that it is better to be dead than blind.

Of course, empirically, there are hundreds of thousands of blind people who prefer being blind to being dead - but since this philosophy is inherently materialist without even a nod to the experiential, they not only lose track of God but even of other people as they engage in their sterile utilitarian calculus.

[2timothy3.16]

Two things:

First, I would like to read what a true Born Again fundamental preacher has to say about this.

And second, I would like to remind those who think like singer and this guy, that Congress passed a law recently giving us the right to use deadly force to protect the life of any baby out of the womb.

Not all of my children were born perfect...

[MEGoody]

"Medicine is in the business of messing with nature and God's will,"

I suppose this could be argued, however, it seems clear to me that God gave doctors their intelligence and skill and has guided mankind in making medical discoveries. The problem comes in when doctors do the opposite of what they are supposed to do as doctors - save life. Ending the life of an innocent child just because they are physically imperfect, or because the child is inconvenient, too expensive, etc. etc. is NOT what doctors are supposed to do.

[FroedrickVonFreepenstein]

I read a book by Gerry Spence a few years ago called From Freedon to Slavery: The Rebirth of Tyranny in America. It begins with a letter from Gerry to Alan J Hirschfield where Gerry explains why he is defending Randy Weaver in court. I will never forget the two paragraphs below. In light of Peter Singer and now this Brock character, they are even more meaningful so I thought I'd share them.


In this country we embrace the myth that we are still a democracy when we know that we are not a democracy, that we are not free, that the government does not serve us but subjugates us. Although we give lip service to the notion of freedom, we know the government is no longer the servant of the people but, at last has become the people's master. We have stood by like timid sheep while the wolf killed, first the weak, then the strays, then those on the outer edges of the flock, until at last the entire flock belonged to the wolf. We did not care about the weak or about the strays. they were not a part of the flock. We did not care about those on the outer edges. They had chosen to be there. But as the wolf worked its way towards the center of the flock we discovered that we were now on the outer edges. Now we must look the wolf squarely in the eye. That we did not do so when the first of us was ripped and torn and eaten was the first wrong. It was our wrong.

That none of us felt responsible for having lost our freedom has been a part of an insidious progression. In the beginning the attention of the flock was directed not to the marauding wolf but to our own deviant members within the flock. We rejoiced as the wolf destroyed them for they were our enemies. We were told that the weak lay under the rocks while we faced the blizzards to rustle our food, and we did not care when the wolf took them. We argued that they deserved it. When one of our flock faced the wolf alone it was always eaten. Each of us was afraid of the wolf, but as a flock we were not afraid. Indeed the wolf cleansed the herd by destroying the weak and dismembering the aberrant element within. As time went by, strangely, the herd felt more secure under the rule of the wolf. It believed that by belonging to this wolf it would remain safe from all the other wolves. But we were eaten just the same.


I enjoyed the book and would recommend it. Here is a link to the entire letter the two paragraphs above were excerpted from. It is preceeded by Hirschfield's letter.

The Letter

[Lilly]

Thank you wideawake. Very well put.