The world is abounding in ethical dilemmas these days. On one side it looks to be possible for parents to chose their child’s sexual orientation. Goodbye gays. On the other side parents’ whose child’s brain stopped developing at 3 months have decided to keep her from growing. That’s right, extreme estrogen therapy stunts growth, and combined with a hysterectomy, and removal of the breast buds you essentially have one, very oversized child or undersized adult. All depends on how you look at it right? We’ll talk about the girl first.
So, the parents’ stunted her growth because it made it easier for her to be handled by her care-givers. They desexualized her so that her breasts wouldn’t get in the way of her wheelchair straps and said care-givers (again) wouldn’t feel “uncomfortable” when undressing and dressing her. She would also never “suffer” from menstruation, cramps or any of the other downsides of a post-pubescent woman. You can read all about it at http://www.slate.com/id/2157861/?GT1=9010 or ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com. My question is this—if your kid is going to be too much of a hassle as an adult, why bother to spend the money on keeping her a kid? Why bother keeping her alive at all? And that leads me to my next issue.
The ability to ensure a child’s sexuality—eliminate homosexuality effectively. One person argued that if a woman could ethically abort a fetus with down syndrome why couldn’t a parent ethically decide upon his or her child’s sexuality? Well I guess that depends on how you view sexuality. Is it a disease? Is it some sort of birth defect? Does being born a homosexual really reduce your life expectations so very much? What about down syndrome? Or any other abnormality?
At what point are we ethically empowered by science to ensure the absolute best life for our children we can? And if you find out the fetus you are carrying (or your wife is carrying) is flawed in someway, can you abort it in favor another, less broken one? I honestly don’t know. Given the option of aborting a baby I knew had down syndrome I have no idea what decision I would make. But I do know two things. You are born with the genetics you have and there is nothing wrong or right about that. “Wrong” and “Right” are moral terms and genetics are not an issue of morality. That means that while down syndrome (and some might argue homosexuality, though that seems to prevalent to be an accident) might be a mutation, it is simply a difference from the norm not a punishment or failing of some kind. If as a parent you give birth to a child with such a condition, Ashley’s for instance how can you mutilate that child’s body for your convenience? At that point what little quality of life is being experienced has been completely destroyed so why not kill the kid? You obviously don’t want the hassle of dealing with it anyway. And finally, the female body will abort any fetus not viable for life so maybe if your body carries the kid to term, gay, stupid or otherwise, you should be prepared to deal with what you have, and love it, not look for a better model.