This Is a Test

What and who do we value? It’s a question worth considering with reports of better pre-natal genetic scans. Chuck Donovan does:

Consider for a moment any random collection of 20 people of your acquaintance. Include your banker. The captain of your high-school football team. The mentally ill veteran on the street corner who accepts a quarter from you twice a week. The perpetually smiling vendor in a wheelchair at the Metro stop who sells you candy for a dollar. The lawyer representing the automobile-insurance company suing you for damages in a recent accident. The student activist who thrust a flyer into your hand on Earth Day.

Now rank these people in order of their inherent superiority and contribution to humanity. If it seems an impossible task not delegated to the human mind or human hands, it is becoming ever clearer that the temptation to rank, to score, and to impose cut-offs on entry into the human community is mounting.