more "right to normal"
I spent this morning eating cocoa-dino-bites and watching Star Wars in Asciimation, which I think we can all agree is a good way to start the day. Now I'm at work, where apparently our air conditioning has gone the way of Ben Affleck's talent (ie it's so gone we're not sure it was ever here) and it's already 80 degrees. It's going to be a hot day, but not a long one, as I'm headed out this afternoon to see my CASA kid at 3:30.
I haven't been in a good movie since 1997.Plus, I suck at poker.
To take a turn towards serious, I spent the drive in this morning thinking about a story my wife told me yesterday about a woman she heard talking about abortion on the radio. This woman had a child who was severely disabled, and she said if she'd have known about the disabilities before the child was born she would have "terminated" her pregnancy. Another woman on the program was told there was a 90% chance her child would be born severely disabled, and so decided to have the abortion rather than risk it.
I'm not shocked by this, but it does upset me. I don't care how large the percentage is - why is it that we believe we've got a fundamental "right" to live a "normal" life that supersedes everything else? Why does our "right" to control our destiny supersede the responsibility to care for the disabled? What happened in our culture to create this false but perceived "right to normal," and what can we do about it? And isn't it a little telling that "normal" is often defined as "whatever causes the least amount of pain and makes other people envious of me?"
Talk about dehumanizing - this is way beyond self-parking cars. I don't care if it is or should be legal to abort your pregnancy from the libertarian, "it's essential for women's freedom" blah blah blah perspective - I'm frustrated by what I see as the opposite of healthy priorities in our culture. We talk about the disabled with this sort of fake self-serving pity, like we understand their pain, and like the only decent thing we can do out of our immense generosity is to end it by preventing or terminating their lives. How generous. Who do we think we are?
I know I've said this before, but, to paraphrase Walker Percy, whenever we make the good of our gene pool more important than the rights of the individuals who comprise it, we are, quite literally, about three steps away from the gas chambers. And whenever we decide our own "right to normal" is more important than suffering on the behalf of others, we lose sense of what it means to be human and lose a chance at real happiness.
Admittedly, this isn't something I face every day. Maybe I'm out of line, but I really don't think so.
posted by RJ @ 9:20 AM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Good post, Red. I would comment more, but I'm supposed to be reading books for school all day. (ha!) Anyway, as I read your post, I couldn't help but wonder if the purpose of wanting to terminate such pregnancies is really to save the child a life of suffering or to save the parent a life of suffering? Having a disabled child is no easy life, and so I wonder what the motivation really is.
“why is it that we believe we've got a fundamental "right" to live a "normal" life that supersedes everything else? Why does our "right" to control our destiny supersede the responsibility to care for the disabled? What happened in our culture to create this false but perceived "right to normal," and what can we do about it?”
Starbucks, heart transplants, iPods, air conditioning, etc. Sorry, had to say it.
It is interesting to me, though, that in an age where the disabled have more rights and privledges than ever before – and even the language of disability is suspect among many - we also feel more comfortable terminating pregnancies than ever before. Whereas, in the age when the severly disabled were locked in a closet for decades, abortions were shameful acts performed in the back of barber shops. I am not sure what it is, but there is some interesting social commentary in there. Any idea what all that is about?
I'm pretty sure the purpose is both, Mair.
I'm not trying to play devil's advocate here, but this really doesn't bother me. You can't assume that we're merely talking about Down Syndrome babies here, you've all seen the people so incredibly disabled that they're barely a step above comatose. You know they're really never going to have any real level of function, they don't recognize anyone or anything, I would hesitate to say that they don't really even exist, in the Peter Singer sense of the word. I'm fine with a little abortion in those cases.
Thanks for pointing out that incongruence, j. morgan. You're the historian among us, and your wife is the sociologist, so between the two of you, you should be able to explain that putative paradox as a social historian! =) I'm just the guy who comes along when someone says "All these X's are Y's" and finds, usually, exactly one X that's not a Y, and then makes a big fuss about it.
So, redhurt is "frustrated by what I see as the opposite of healthy priorities in our culture."
Yeah...I mean, I am too, but which question are you asking? What should be legal? What should we allow or encourage our friends and families to do? What's tasteful? What's moral? I'm not going to defend (in this comment) anyone's "right" to abort a "defective" baby, because (1) I'm not sure what a "defective" baby is or even if there is such a thing, and (2) the water about abortion rights is hopelessly murky. What do you want to know? Would you and wife_of_redhurt keep a child with some sort of scary sounding syndrom? Would I? Do you want to know what's wrong with our culture, or how we got this way?
I'll throw that out and come back after you've gotten a chance to clarify.
jacks, you're usually fine with a little everything in every case.
I don't know that there has ever really been a lot of logic to the argument -- I'm pretty sure its just about feelings. But here is my take on the logical side of the argument:
1. If I know that my baby is going to have <insert appropriate disease> it is better for it to be aborted than born
2. If it is better for my child to have never been born but it was then it is better for it to die today than to live another day in its current state
3. Even though I missed the abortion window I should kill my child today because it is better for it to not be alive
Is there a logical flaw in there? Cause I don't see one, but I also don't hear anyone (rational) calling for euthanization of the disabled. If someone is so disabled that it would be better if they were never born, then doesn't it logically follow that its better if they are killed as soon as possible? I don't understand, other than the emotional feelings, what it is that separates the unborn from the born in these types of conversations. If a disability is a valid cause to stop someone from being born how is it not a valid cause to end their life after the birth point? Here is something interesting to consider: "we" say that it is okay to have an abortion to save this person from ever being born, but its not okay to end their life once they are born. Now, what if time travel were possible? Would it be ethical to go back in time before that person was born and abort them? If so, how is that really different from killing them after birth (assuming the death is painless)? If not, how is it any better than having the abortion before the fact?
I'm not saying we should euthanize the disabled. Rather I'm saying that a disability should never be justification for abortion precisely because it would be wrong to euthanize the disabled.
Charles - I knew you'd be that guy. I'm asking, quite blatantly, what happened in culture to make the "right to normal" possible, and what can we do about it. I'm expressly not asking about the legality of the issue or any of those other things.
j. morgan - I agree, I just don't blame the ipod. To borrow from sociology, I think it's a spurious relationship, or at the very least not a unidirectional cause/effect. Convenience certainly plays a part, but I think it's only a catalyst in this equation, and the real problem is, as always, the way we use the things we have, and not those things themselves. Is there a way to oppose the dangerous culture of necessary convenience that air conditioning breeds without getting rid of it? I optimistically say there should be, I'm just not sure what it is. There's a big difference between you and Paris Hilton, and I don't think it's because she had more AC.
Well in that case, let me raise my apple martini in a toast to sweet moderation.
“To borrow from sociology, I think it's a spurious relationship, or at the very least not a unidirectional cause/effect.”
You are absolutely right; it is spurious. All I was saying – apart from a bit of self-mockery – is that the same cultural forces that produce iPods also produce the belief in a “right to normal,” although I think the “right to normal” thing is an unintentional consequence of progress.
“Convenience certainly plays a part, but I think it's only a catalyst in this equation, and the real problem is, as always, the way we use the things we have, and not those things themselves.”
I completely agree. That’s why I have an iPod, use A/C, and am blogging.
“There's a big difference between you and Paris Hilton, and I don't think it's because she had more AC.”
Yes, there is. However, nobody creates iPods for people like us, they are created for people like Paris Hilton, who outnumber people like us 50 to 1. We piggyback self-consciously and with a resulting measure of restraint. Also, to get a better sense of where iPods come from and how that is tied to a ‘right to normal,” I think it would be better, for instance, to look at the Gates Foundation and the way Bill and Melinda talk about education. They set the terms, not Paris and certainly not us.
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