Since it is the 35th Anniversary of Roe-v-Wade and Doe-v-Bolton, I cannot think of a better book to read than this book.
Written by Melinda Tankard-Reist, an Australian woman, Defiant Birth questions the wide use of pre-natal genetic testing and the social consequences the results bring forth. Reist first gives a historical background on the early eugenics movement and she proves how not much has changed in humanity’s quest for the perfect human. She shows how the scientific field and the medical establishment pressure women to obtain genetic tests and then if the child is found to be deformed or ill, the expectation is that the woman will abort. She is assumed to be clearly irresponsible if she does NOT abort. Even worse, the general society around her expects her to abort and questions her decision to keep her child alive.
Tankard-Reist writes about those women who clearly choose to let their child live against the objections of family members, all the medical community, and overall society. These women, from different parts of Europe and the US, all face withering criticism for being the 10% or less who choose not to abort their children with genetic abnormalities.
She ultimately questions how eliminating a whole segment of a population–in the Western world the disabled and in the Eastern world females–will impact society’s ethics as a whole and wonders what we lose in their removal. She wonders who will next be eliminated in society’s quest for perfection since most disabled people become disabled after birth. Will society no longer focus on mere physical deformities but also personality traits? What is the true meaning of “diversity?”
This book made me rethink my entire pre-natal experience. Though my doctor was “pro-life” he assumed I would use genetic tests. We were offered up to 35 different tests we could take during the entire 9 months. My spouse and I questioned each test and only took the tests that would further the health of our child in the case she was disabled. For instance if she had had spina bifida, my doctor informed me I would be sent to Seattle to give birth because they have specialists there. The other test that I did not even question and indeed wanted was the ultrasound. The first ultrasound normally occurs at 20 weeks to “see” how the baby is. Yet I distinctly remember my technician telling “Oh good. Your baby has all its parts.” I remember responding that “I am glad, but I would love her even if she didn’t.” Do you know what the technician said? She said “You are very unique. Most parents do not.”
This leads to the other point that Tankard-Reist focuses on. The new eugenics movement is not carried about by a government agency, but rather parents. I remember at one mommy blog a woman spoke about aborting her down syndrome child for “his sake.” I was horrified! I told her that she was practicing genocide. How can it be genocide when individuals only kill one person and not a whole population? Yet what happens when collectively there are no more down syndrome individuals because individuals have been pressured to relieve society of the health “burden” their children create?
Every person of conscience must read this book and share it with their family and friends.
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